Lokidottir
by Lalaith Quetzalli
Summary: -Part 1 of the Menel series- Daughter of None... Daughter of SHIELD... Daughter of Secrets... Only when the three are combined, will the true Sky be revealed... There was more to her than she ever imagined... (LokiOFC and some Avengers mentions and cameos)
1. Daughter

Lokidottir

(Part 1 of the Menel Series)

_By: Lalaith Quetzalli _

_As Skye lay on that cellar, bleeding to death, she did something she hadn't done in years, she called for her mom... and someone answered... When Skye is close to death someone actually hears her call for help, her blood-family. They will do anything to protect her. And from then on, nothing will ever be the same again. _

I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Thor, Avengers of anything else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (as should be obvious, it's all owned by Marvel). I own the character of Tawariel, the version of the Ljósálfar (Light Elves) I portray here; which, I'm told, are quite Tolkien-ish... however, other than the basics of the elves (looks, language, some songs) Tolkien and his works will have no connection to this. I also own Skye's origin story (in all that it deviates from what is being shown in the series).

This story is in no way connected to my Nightingale-verse. It has everything to do with my One-Shot Menel.

When I first wrote Menel I intended for it to be a One-Shot. The 'impossible story' I called it as, from the very moment the idea first came to me I knew, without a doubt, there was no way something like what I had thought of could ever be. While I'm pretty sure at least one of Skye's parents will turn out to be from another realm, probably even Asgardian, I'm quite sure it won't be Loki, and things certainly won't be like the story he has with Tawar. However, once the idea got into my head I couldn't help myself, I had to write it, so I did.

When I posted Menel I hoped some people would read it, maybe a few would even like it, and that would be it. I had another (pretty complicated) Avengers story already in the works, which had to remain my main focus (and it still is, to be honest). Nightingale may be behind canon right now, but I'm working on the actual sequel (not AUs, as the ones who've read it will understand) which will go into T2:tDW; and after that a companion story featuring my second favorite pairing from that verse Darcy/Phil, which will also go into AoS, or my version of the show for that verse. So, people will probably understand when I say I never intended for Menel to go beyond the (quite long) One-Shot I originally wrote.

From the first day the story was posted (or night, depending on your point of view), people were reading the fic, were liking it; and beyond what I could have ever imagined, they were asking for me to continue. Either they didn't focus on the whole 'Impossible' thing I'd mentioned, or just did not care. I decided to give a sequel a try, though I warned readers that it would be until at least two more episodes had gone by in the show, so I had an idea what I had to work with; I even said that if I decided that wasn't enough, I would wait until the season finale.

In the end, I'm not waiting that long, but also some things have happened in the show I knew I would have to work around... like a certain blue alien, the GH 'experimental drug', not to say the shocking not-exactly-clear scene the 15th episode ended in! After almost a whole day thinking things over, I finally made a decision on what to do, and it was this:

Menel will stay as it is right now, as a One-Shot and a short, simple version of this. Lokidottir will be the first in a longer version of Menel, a series that will bear that name. Thus the first two or three chapters of this story will be a rewrite of the original One-Shot, with some scenes added for a better understanding of new things, and some changes to allow for the things that have come to happen in the show and I will include here. The basics are still the same: Tawar a she-elf, Loki's match, the two of them Skye's parents, their tragedy, their finding Skye, the story told. However, things will take the context of the 14th episode, among some other things. You will see, and I hope you'll like... Here goes.

(Opening created by Coulsye Productions, can be found in her youtube account)

* * *

**Chapter 1. Daughter of... **

A woman was standing in the shade of a tree, golden skin, a little over five and a half feet tall, with light brown loose curls falling down her shoulders and small honey-brown eyes, she was dressed in a soft green gown long to the ground, with a wide round neckline, bell-like long sleeves and delicate white embroidery in the hem. Around her neck was a gold locket, round, with a design of elaborate knots engraved in the middle, surrounded by a ring of other symbols. It was a family heirloom. Her feet were bare. And her hands... they were poised delicately together, just above her middle, above the swell of her belly...

The wind seemed to change abruptly, if only for an instant, and in the next second the woman was alone no more in that meadow. Standing just a couple of feet away was a man, almost all of six feet tall, with a slim, athletic build, alabaster skin, stormy eyes, short wild, raven hair; dressed in a green tunic, dark leather breeches and equally dark leather boots; all of it half-hidden by a tanned-cloak.

"Serrure..." She whispered in the softest voice, an almost angelic smile on her face.

"Tawariel..." He whispered in the same tone, pushing back the hood and then fully dropping the cloak with a couple of smooth moves.

It looked like he was about to rush her, but before he could the woman, Tawariel, raised a hand in a stopping motion. When she moved the other more fully to her bump, Serrure followed it, understanding the motion in an instant.

"You're..." He was in shock.

"With child." She confirmed. "Your child..."

In the next instant he was holding her, by the hips, much more delicately than he might have, hadn't he known of her condition, then he proceeded to raise her into the air and spin her around; joyful laughter pouring from his mouth, a melody that was doubled when hers joined it.

"You're amazing!" He announced after a while, when he finally set her back on her feet. "The most amazing woman I've ever met. My elven princess..."

"You know I haven't been a princess for the longest time... not Tawariel, just Tawar." She reminded him in an almost chastising tone, but with a smile still on her lips.

"For me you will always be a princess, my Tawariel, the same lady who bewitched me body and soul from the first moment I laid eyes on her." He declared passionately. "And now our joy is to be multiplied, with the addition of a child..." His voice quieted slightly as he added. "I wish I could take you home, to my home I mean. To Asgard... make you my wife, give you the life you deserve... wish I could recognize this child as mine, as is proper..."

"But we cannot, and we both know the reasons why, your father would never approve." She reminded him quietly. "And as wonderful as your mother might be, she cannot change that." She shook her head. "Also, never blame yourself for the life I've had. It is the life I chose, both for you and for myself. And even if the rest of the universe can never know about us, we know, and that's what matters. Our daughter will know who her father is, and that's what will matter..."

"Daughter?" He inquired, interested.

"I've seen her in my dreams." She informed him. "Though her image is blurry. My precognitive abilities are not the best, of course. Still, I have seen her..."

With a touch to his temple, she shared the image with him: of a girl with sun-kissed skin, waves of light-brown hair falling down her back and doe eyes; the clothes she was wearing were quite different to what the parents could readily identify, either from Alfheim or Asgard, however, that did not actually matter; the child was smiling in the dream-image, with a look that seemed to hide a thousand secrets. She seemed happy, only that mattered.

"That's all I've seen clearly." Tawariel informed him. "I know not why she's wearing such clothes, or where she is..."

"It doesn't matter, we'll have time to find out all those details." Serrure assured her. "All that matters is that we're having a happy, beautiful little girl. Identical to her mother..."

"Wish she had your eyes." She whispered, caressing his face. "I do love your eyes, the changing colors, they're like the ever changing skies, from clear, to clouded to a raging storm..."

"She will be a copy of her gorgeous mother, and that is enough for me." He insisted.

Then he proceeded to prove just how happy he was by kissing her breathless.

**xXx**

Tawar was pacing that morning, from one side of the clearing to the other; though she stopped every few minutes to rest. The swell of her belly was more pronounced, showing she was more than halfway through her pregnancy by that point.

Serrure appeared in the clearing at some point during her pacing; he was about to rush her and kiss her, wanting to feel the life growing beneath his beloved's skin; and then he noticed the tension in her every muscle.

"What is wrong?" He asked quietly, worried.

Tawar reacted to the sound of someone else in the clearing with her instinctively, spinning around sharply, one arm going around her belly, protectively, while with the other she wielded a silver dagger. It was the last part that shocked Serrure the most; his beloved was not a fighter, had never been, she actually abhorred violence above all else, to see her holding a weapon, even one as beautiful as the delicate silver dagger on her hand, seemed completely wrong.

"Melamin (My love)?" He called, using her language so as to set her at ease. "Lle tyava quel (Do you feel well)?"

"Aye..." She eventually calmed down, switching to Common Tongue. "You just surprised me."

"I could tell." He murmured, taking the dagger from her slowly and going to embrace her. "What has happened to make you decide to take a weapon. You hate violence..."

"I may hate a lot of things, but that does not mean I wouldn't fight to protect what I love." Tawar assured him, melting into his arms.

"I believe you." He assured her. "But what has made you believe this is necessary."

"Your father knows about me, and about the child..." She revealed quietly, sadly.

"What?!" He was shocked. "That's not possible! I've taken every precaution..."

"I think it is possible that he knew about me all along." She explained him. "It's just... as long as I wasn't a threat to his power, he was leaving me alone. Now..."

"You're still no threat to him." He insisted.

"You know his delusions better than most. The things he's come to believe... the thing he's done to your other children..." She shook her head repeatedly. "I will not allow that kind of tragic fate to befall any child of mine."

"You have a plan..." It wasn't a question.

"I'm leaving." She announced, backtracking after seeing his desolate expression. "Not you, I mean this place. I cannot stay here, not when he could come for me, for us at any moment. I need to depart before I enter my last trimester, by then it will be too dangerous for my baby to travel. I was just waiting for your visit, so you would know."

"How are you planning to leave? And where to?"

"I don't know where exactly just yet, though it obviously will be another realm." Tawar told him honestly. "As to how... Lady Thenidiel owed me a favor..."

"The Lady Thenidiel..." He repeated in complete shock. "Alfheim's most powerful spellweaver owed you a favor?"

"As you know, I am no sorceress myself." She elaborated. "I may no longer be a princess, but she hasn't forgotten a time when I gave her my help when she needed it. She knew I needed her now, without me even having to look for her. She brought this." She showed him what looked like a piece of glass. "She says it's a teleportation spell, with enough power to break into another realm. Because it has her signature they won't connect it to me, and if anyone ever asks, she will tell them it was part of an experiment that she chose not to pursue, as it didn't work right. It also will leave no trace so, even if somehow, someone were to suspect the truth, they still wouldn't be able to track me down."

"It is an amazing favor." He admitted. "So, where have you planned on going?"

"Well, Asgard is out for obvious reasons, same as the Realms of the Dead, that of Demons, Svartalfheim, Jotunheim and Nidavellir." She enlisted. "I might be able to hide out in Vanaheim, I can hide my elven features and pass as a Vanir easy enough. However, it's so close to Asgard that... well, I don't know."

"Which only leaves one place." He cut to the chase. "Midgard. If you hide your elven features you will be able to pass for human too, and everyone in Asgard thinks so little of mortals they will never think of looking for you there."

She nodded, he was right.

"You must leave tomorrow." He informed her. "For your own safety, and the baby's, the sooner the better."

"You're not coming with me, are you?" She was sad, but understood why.

"I need to find out who knows about you and how much they know, then do what I can to destroy any evidence they might have, especially of our child." He informed her. "I will join you in Midgard once I'm done there. Even if it takes me a while, I will join you."

"How?" She didn't want to sound so hopeless, but her pregnancy was affecting her moods, sending her from one end to the other abruptly. "Midgard is such a big Realm...

"I will always find you, I promise you." He assured her, brushing her tears away

"I believe you." She nodded, doing her best to smile for him. "I trust you."

"I love you." He replied.

"Amin mella le..." She whispered back in her own language.

If they'd had known what was coming their way, perhaps they wouldn't have been so quick to say their goodbyes that day, would have taken their time, enjoyed a few moments together. But they did not know, and they chose to part, not knowing things would never be the same again.

**xXx**

A woman's pained cry was closely followed by a baby's. There was the rustling of clothes, and after a couple of minutes an old woman, a midwife, placed a flushed-skinned tiny baby, wrapped in a beautiful ivory blanket with green and golden embroidery before the young woman laying on the bed. The woman, with her usually luscious brown hair matted with sweat and honey eyes half-closed in exhaustion reacted instantly, wrapping her arms around her baby.

The midwife said something in a language the new-mother couldn't understand, but then another, a girl, who had been acting as nurse through the whole labor, translated in half-broken Common (or as the humans called the language, English).

"You...have... beautiful baby-girl..." She said.

Tawar nodded, tears beginning to fall from her eyes. She half heard the girl telling her they would leave so she could bond with her child in private. The two women had been so very supportive since finding her lost near their property, with just a small bag of things that did little for her in the new world, and not knowing how to survive in the new one. She had sold most of her jewelry; all but her locket in fact, as it held a personal value, higher than any price someone could offer for it Still, the money had helped her some, and the midwife and granddaughter had allowed her to stay with them in their small, two room home.

In that moment she was crying, not only at the wonder of the small, beautiful life in her arms, but also in sadness at the absence of her beloved. Serrure had promised to go to her, to find her; yet after almost four months, he still hadn't. She knew how much he loved her, and there was no doubt in her mind that, if he hadn't reached her yet, there must be a reason. Something had gone wrong on his end, very wrong.

She hadn't named her baby yet, she wanted her beloved to be there when she did, but the more time that passed, the more she began to wonder if that day would ever come. She knew that she would have to get on the move soon, for her safety and her daughter's. She couldn't stay in one place for long, not with the risk of certain individuals finding her, people who might wish her, and especially her child, harm.

A day and a half later, in the hour before dawn, Tawar had just finished breast-feeding her baby when she felt coldness filling her. She might not have been a Sorceress herself, but had enough awareness to sense when someone not-human, someone of power, was approaching... and it wasn't her beloved.

"Xiefa!" Tawar called, her voice shooting through two octaves in her nervousness.

Xiefa, the midwife's teenage granddaughter, rushed into the room not long afterwards. There was a question already on her lips, probably if the baby needed changing again, as she'd been helping Tawar with that while the new-mother recovered enough strength to move.

"Xiefa..." Tawar interrupted her in her most serious voice. "How far is the closest town?"

"Six hours a...on fo...foot a' good speed." The girl told her promptly.

"Can you make it?" Tawar forced herself to speak despite the coming tears. "Can you get there, with the baby?"

Xiefa was absolutely shocked by the question, and not because she didn't understand it; because she understood more English than she could actually speak (as her accent made the pronunciation harder, somehow).

"Yes..." The girl admitted after what seemed like forever.

"You need to take her." Tawar told her. "Need to take her away. For safety." She explained as best she could, as fast as possible. "There's someone coming, for me, for us... they cannot find her. She must be protected..."

Xiefa did not want to go, was terrified of hurting the newborn child, of leaving her grandmother and even the woman she'd begun seeing as family as well. Eventually Yue, the midwife, joined the conversation, pretty much ordering her granddaughter to take the baby and run the moment she understood, more or less, the seriousness of the situation.

Tawar would have told Yue to run as well, but the old-woman would have never managed the journey to the town, she was too old (there was a reason they had people who ran errands for them). Still, they both felt the need to protect their families.

"You must... name child..." Yue stated in a very thick accent, speaking English for the first time before Tawar.

That actually gave the brunette pause, as she looked at the baby in her arms; she didn't want to let her go, not for her life... but knew it was necessary, for her own life, to keep her safe from those who wished her harm, like Serrure's father... She remembered why she hadn't named her just yet, and it made her sad to think her beloved wouldn't be able to offer his opinion. Still, Tawar knew the perfect name, had known it since first seeing the child, her eyes...

"Menel..." She whispered emotionally, placing a kiss on her baby's brow in blessing. "For her eyes, her father's eyes..."

Eyes that would be hidden. It was something she could do with what little magic she possessed. She didn't like it, but it was necessary, even when the child looked mostly like her, that eye-color would scream who her father was, to those who knew him. It also explained why her visions had showed her a girl with doe eyes, rather than ones that reflected storms; her vision kept clearing up, just like upon first arriving to Midgard and seeing Xiefa she'd begun to understand the clothes her future daughter had been wearing. And she'd also just understood why the vision had showed her daughter standing alone...

Almost as an after-thought Tawar pulled the golden locket over her head, before placing the chain around her baby's neck. It was long for her still, but she would grow into it, and at least that way she would have something from her...

"Menel, my beautiful child..." She whispered, placing another tender kiss on her head before whispering into her ear in elvish. "Amin mela lle, lirimaer amin (I love you, my lovely one)..."

"What does the name mean?" Xiefa asked quietly.

Tawar was feeling so emotionally tired already she whispered one single word into the girl's ear; she nodded in understanding, then shouldered the bag with everything they'd gotten for the baby, making sure she would have no problems with it, and straightened up to receive the child. Before the grief of losing her newborn girl made her even think of something insane, Tawar placed her carefully in Xiefa's arms.

"Goodbye, my treasure..." She whispered as Xiefa turned to leave. "I promise, I will find you one day, my treasure. You won't be alone forever. We will find you..."

They would, Tawar swore that to herself and to her child. It didn't matter how long it took, or what it might cost, one day she would find her daughter.

**xXx**

The she-elf was on the dirt-ground, coughing and gasping, blood coming out of her mouth and dripping down her lip after the back-handed slap had split her lip open; before another hit had caused her to involuntarily bite the inside of her own mouth (hence the rest of the blood). The hit, added to her remaining weakness after giving birth less than seventy-two hours ago, made it so she couldn't actually stand on her own two-feet.

It took almost a full minute, but eventually Tawar managed to breathe right again. As she raised her head she couldn't stop her dark-honey eyes from meeting the blank ones of Yue. Her body was half-unseen in the remains of the broken wood and mud wall; in the very spot where she'd fallen after the Eihenjar had carelessly thrown her away, when she was only trying to help Tawar. And while the old woman had known the risks of staying around, of even taking her in, or perhaps more-so for those very reasons, Tawar grieved her loss. Yue was the sweetest, kindest woman the former elven princess had ever met, she hadn't deserved such a cruel death, and especially how little her murderer even cared...

As Tawar laid there, thinking about Yue, her thoughts strayed to Xiefa. She could only hope the girl had managed to reach the town alright with the baby; that the two of them might be able to hide there. As long as they survived, as they managed to stay away from those who wished them harm, nothing else mattered.

As if on cue, another figure entered the half-destroyed hut right then; one figure she knew well, the very reason for all her grievances...

"How hard the mighty have fallen..." The man mocked her as he locked around the place. "From princess, to pariah to... this..."

Tawar didn't answer him, didn't think it was worth it.

"Where is the baby?" He asked, though his attention was on the man who'd arrived first.

"I know not, your Majesty." The Eihenjar admitted.

"What?!" The royal man wasn't expecting that.

"When I found the she-elf she had no one but the crone with her." The soldier gestured vaguely to the dead woman. "No child, newborn or otherwise. Not even a trace of her existence anywhere in the house or the surroundings."

"How is that possible?" The King inquired, still in disbelief. "The mages had no doubts about it, the brat was born less than three days ago!"

The Eihenjar could only shrug, not having any further answers for his liege.

Unsatisfied, the tall man approached the she-elf still on her knees, taking hold of her and with no care for her at all, pulling her up. She wasn't actually standing, the King holding her up, high enough her bare toes barely grazed the dirt; yet she could hardly care at the moment, focused as she was on breathing.

"Where is the brat?!" The king demanded her. "Where is that monster-spawn?"

For all answer she half-spat, half-coughed on the man, blood splattering on his face and clothes. Disgusted he let go of her, not caring for the way she dropped to the ground, or the pained groan as her already tired body became even more bruised.

"I will never tell you what you want to know..." She hissed before letting out another cough and a little more blood. "Never..."

"Listen to me, little elf..." He told her in the most serious voice. "I have nothing truly against you, but you are beginning to truly annoy me. I can care little about what you do with your life, but that brat of yours is a risk, to Asgard and to all of Yggdrassil... she cannot be allowed to live..."

"If you honestly believe that saying that will make me tell you, you are beyond insane." Tawar practically snarled at him. "Your words only make obvious that having a son doesn't make a father. For if you truly were that you would realize a parent will never give up a child, never. I would rather die a thousand deaths than allow you anywhere close to my child..."

"I will make you tell me." He insisted. "Whatever I have to do. I will get that information out of you. I won't have any monster-spawn being a risk to what I've built!"

"I know what you've done to the rest of Serrure's children, and will never allow that to happen to my baby, never." Tawar insisted. "No matter what you do, I will never tell you what you want to know... never ever."

"We will see about that." There was no mistaking the dark glint in his eyes, he ws willing to truly do anything, hurt her even.

"You will never find my child." Tawar insisted, half to him, half to herself. "Never!"

In that moment she had no idea of what was yet to come to her; though on one point she was right, Odin never did find her baby... no matter how much he tried, all the destruction and death he caused, he could never find her.

**xXx**

Unknown to most people in the Realm Eternal, even to the actual Eihenjar, there was another cell, besides those in the palace's basement, what was commonly known as the dungeons. A room made completely of stone, all around, with no windows and no doors; it could only be accessed with a teleportation spell, by a person holding a magical key. It was impossible to escape. Also, the rocks the walls were made of were special, they drained magic and energy; eventually anyone placed inside it would be drained to the point that they would fall into a trance similar to a very deep sleep, or a coma.

It was a prison meant for the worst of criminals, those who had committed the worst kind of betrayal, for being sentenced there was like being dead while never truly dying. It was a prison only a select few knew of, though most believed it hadn't been used in millennia... the King of Asgard knew different. He himself had sent a young elven-lady there, over two decades before; after she'd proven that nothing, not magic, nor persuasion, nor torture, would make her speak, make her reveal her secrets... and the one the King cared to know the most: the location of her offspring: the child who, according to his sources, had been born less than three days before he found her, with only an old, mortal woman to defend her... he'd still missed the brat, and the elf refused to talk.

It was all his traitorous son's fault, he knew. The fool should have known better than to try having a child; hadn't he seen what had become of all the other ones? It was all because his foolish son was a monster, even if he didn't know it yet; monsters weren't meant to have children, especially not monsters who could one day destroy the world he (the king) had built. He would never allow anyone, especially not a bastard's brat, destroy the way of life he'd spent thousands of years building, his legacy, his throne...

In the end he still needed his foolish bastard of a son for his plans, but he did not need the she-elf, and the problems she could cause. So he'd sent her to the 'box', and made sure to erase any and all memories his adopted son had of her. The brat had disappeared for the time being, but he would find her one day, and he would destroy her utterly. A fitting punishment for the parents who had dared defy him by bringing her into the world and then daring to try and run to keep her from him, as if anyone could ever have more power than him...

Those were his plans, the plans of the King of the Realm Eternal, Asgard, of Odin Allfather. Plans that came crashing down when his adopted son chose to commit suicide rather than stay under his thumb. Only he didn't die, he fell through space and emptiness and darkness; fell into the abyss, where he discovered pain and horror, and at some point, he also rediscovered what he did not know he had lost: a princess from the forests, with eyes like honey and beautiful curls of golden-brown hair; and the miracle she'd been carrying in her womb...

Throughout everything that followed that fall: the pain, the grief, the torture, the war, the defeat, the hysteria, the loss, the escape, the sacrifice... he never forgot the two loves of his life, never stopped fighting in their name and memory. Until the day came when he managed to rob the King of his throne, claiming it for himself. With that throne came a key, and when the Fool, who had become the Usurper, decided to place Odin in that very cell to keep him out of the way, he found his elven princess there. And everything changed once again.

When Tawar woke up, in a four-poster bed with silk-sheets and huge pillows, in a huge bedroom with wooden floors, bookshelves that went from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall, and forest-green drapes swaying softly in the wind, opened to reveal a balcony with a gorgeous view of the Eternal Realm... she did not recognize the room, or the view, or the world she was in. However, she did recognize the eyes staring at her, the man sitting beside her, waiting for her to wake up: it was the Fool, turned Usurper, seen as King, her beloved...

"Serrure..." She whispered, her voice hoarse by lack of use.

"Tawariel..." He addressed her the same way he had all those times, in another world, a different life, so many years before...

"You found me..." She whispered, marveled.

"I will always find you." He assured her, bring one of her hands to his lips, to kiss. "Call me by my true name, I wish for nothing more right now than to hear it from your lips. Say it, please..."

"Loki, my love..." She whispered.

For a few seconds not a word was said, until something reminded her of her last days fully conscious; instinctively her free hand went to her middle, to the bump no longer there. She had known it wouldn't be, she remembered the birth of her child clearly enough, the bittersweet day and a half that followed... and also her loss...

"Menel..." She whispered brokenly.

"Menel?" He repeated, drinking the name in slowly, switching it then to a more princess-like form. "Meneliel..."

"She's no princess..." She reminded him.

"To me, she is." He insisted. "And now that I hold a throne...Meneliel..."

"I had to let her go..." She confessed to him. "To protect her from your father..."

"He is not my father. He never was." He corrected. "But I see your point." He caressed her face. "Do not feel bad, my love. You did what was necessary to protect your child, our child..."

"She's lost... alone..." She began crying at the thought, the memory of the vision.

"We'll find her." He assured her. "I promise you. We will find our princess... our sky..."

**"**We'll find her..." She repeated with conviction.

**xXx**

In a S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy in the United Kingdom, a tall brunette with light brown eyes stood in front of what was known as the Wall of Valor. A marble wall that included the name of every S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent in history that had fallen in the line of duty; for an outsider it would seem that she was like any other wannabe-Agent, or even a Rookie, silently taking in the piece of history the memorial represented; however, her eyes were actually fixed on one single name: Agent L. Avery; a name that meant so much to her, she could hardly put it into words.

One thing kept running through her mind right then: the words that Agent Coulson, the Senior Agent and Leader of the Special Team she worked with as a Consultant, whom she had been with for months, had told her. She had betrayed him at some point, putting her desire, her need for answers concerning her own past rising above her wish for friends and a family, above the love that was growing in her for the mismatched members of the Team. Yet he had forgiven her, and with time she'd managed to make amends, to make things right.

Earlier that day he had revealed to her what he'd found out, the truth about her past; and despite her old self-assurances, it had been worse than anything she could have imagined, in some ways; in others... in others it was amazing, breath-taking... to know that so many people had fought, had died to protect her. While the deaths themselves were certainly a tragedy, especially those of civilians; knowing that people, all who had never known her, some who weren't even fighters, had done all they could to keep her safe... it awed and humbled her at the same time.

She remembered a moment, back when she was still being moved from foster-home to foster-home, when she'd first come to believe that no one wanted her:

_Miss Matthews asked her to stay behind when class ended. Several of the students muttered bad jokes as they moved past her, while others whispered that she'd probably failed the test they'd done that day. Skye was actually confused, History was one of few topics she was actually good at, she didn't think she had failed the test, even though she'd arrived to the school at the middle of the term, so then why... _

_Once the rest of the children cleared the room, the redheaded teacher at the front gestured for her to approach the main desk. _

"_Did I fail?" Skye blurted out before she could fully think about it. _

"_What?" Miss Matthews seemed honestly surprised by the question. "No! What would make you think that? Skye, you're one of my best students in this subject..." _

"_I don't know why else you would ask me to stay back." Skye admitted with a small shrug. _

"_Well, it wasn't that, I assure you." The teacher insisted. "In fact, just from taking a quick look at your test, I'm sure you'll get full marks, again." _

"_Then why did you ask me to stay behind?" The girl insisted. _

_For all answer The teacher placed Skye's test in front of her, there was a mark near the very top of the paper, on the line meant for the name, it said just: Skye... _

"_For most it would seem like you just forgot to write your surname." Miss Matthews said. "But I've known since your first day in this school, and I have a feeling there's more to this than simply forgetting anything..." When Skye didn't say a word she turned things into a question. "Why didn't you write your surname Skye?" _

"_I don't have one." The girl shrugged, as if uncaring, though Matthews knew her too well to believe it was really that simple. _

"_You used to write Bennet as your surname." Matthews reminded her. "It's the name in your school registries. Isn't it?" _

_For almost a few minutes not a word was spoken. Matthews did not push, just waiting until Skye was ready to talk, and eventually she did. _

"_It's not mine." She finally began spilling everything out. "The Bennets were the first family to take me in, wrote their name with mine when they first sent me to school. It's how the name ended in my registries. But after three months they didn't want me anymore, they sent me back. Every family has been the same since. No one wants me." She let out a ragged breath. "A surname, it's supposed to be the name of your family, the name you use to claim you're a part of something bigger, your connection to other people. But I have no one, no family, no true surname... because no one wants me. I am the Daughter of None!" _

_That was the one time Skye allowed herself to cry for not having a family, the first and the last time... All the while Miss Matthews just held her, caresing her hair and murmuring sweet nothings to her, promissing her one day she would have a family. Skye came so close to asking her if she would want to be her family, though she managed to contain herself in the last moment. _

_In the end, it mattered not, for less than a week later the Lawsons were sending her back to St. Agnes, and a week afterwards she was being carted off to yet another city, another school, another family... none of which would ever truly be hers. _

As she thought back on that day, on Miss Matthews, she couldn't help but wonder what her chances were to find her. Just to see her again, to see how she was, and to tell her she'd been right, eve if it had taken so many years, she'd found a family...

It may not be the family she had expected, dreamt of, or even hoped for in a corner of her mind. But somehow it was much better. It was a family where blood did not matter; where the bonds went beyond that, were formed from much more than that. She remembered the words Coulson had said, when he'd shattered her reality, thoroughly destroyed everything she had once believed about the world, and her place in it; yet, at the same time, she also remembered the words she herself had said in answer; when her heart had finally stopped thudding and her brain cleared enough to at least half process her new reality:

"No, my story doesn't end here, it starts here, it started here..." She whispered. "I... for the longest time I believed that no family wanted me, that I wasn't enough; I thought that even my parents hadn't loved me. And now... now I found out it wasn't about the families, or that I wasn't good, or enough, or loved, it was all about my safety. Those families might not have been able to keep me, but that doesn't matter either, because I've always had a family, one that's been protecting me for as long as I've lived; who's always looked after me. That's S.H.I.E.L.D., S.H.I.E.L.D. is my family, and it always will be..."

**xXx**

A tired Skye dropped onto her bunk heavily. Taking a couple of minutes just to regulate her breathing and try and wait for her muscles to stop burning. She was so completely exhausted... she'd been training so much in the last week, more than ever before in her life; even more than everything her Superior Officer already insisted on having her do since beginning her training months before.

Hardly anyone understood why she was doing it, why she pushed herself so hard; FitzSimmons had actually tried to get her to slow down a bit, least she drop dead from exhaustion; even her SO had told her she shouldn't push herself so hard, there was no need for her to burn herself out before she was ready. May didn't say a thing, nor did Coulson, but then again, they understood why she did it; or at least, if they did not understand, at least they knew her reasons and respected them, respected her to make them.

After a while she felt well enough to sit up, her back against the wall; she pulled her laptop to her and turned it on. It felt so well to be able to use electronics, surf the web, and especially hack once again, without all devices going nuts on her whenever she touched them. She was so glad AC had taken that bracelet off her!

It wasn't even the ability to once again handle electronics, not really (though that helped, made her feel useful once again). No, it was the fact that by taking the bracelet off AC was showing he had forgiven her, she'd regained his trust. There were times after her screw up with Miles when she was afraid that day would never come. And ever since she'd gotten to know Agent Coulson, truly know him, she knew his trust and friendship were precious, and she wanted to have them (she got her priorities mixed up at some point, but managed to atone).

Coulson was special to her, the first person to believe in her in a very long time, quite possibly her whole life... she considered him a dear friend, family even... she wondered if that was what having a father felt like... it was nice, more than that, it was amazing!

Agent Coulson found her still sitting there, working on her laptop a few hours later.

"Everything alright in here, Skye?" He asked her with a small smile.

"Peachy, AC." She assured him.

After a few seconds Coulson seemed to realize that Skye wasn't actually typing anything, just looking at something in her laptop.

"Mind telling me what is it you're looking at so intently?" He asked softly.

For all answer she turned the laptop enough for him to see the screen. It was some sort of tourist site, and there were pictures cycling through. When one showed what looked like a small cottage near rice fields Coulson had a good idea what place it was.

"You're researching China?" He asked in an understanding tone.

"More like just looking it up." Skye shrugged. "I'm curious you know, about the place where I was found, where I might have been born... it seems like a nice place for the most part."

"Are you still trying to find your parents?" Coulson inquired. "I haven't found anything else. I would have told you if I had and..."

"It's alright AC, I trust you." She assured him with a soft smile. "And no, I decided not to search for them anymore."

"May I ask why?"

"Well, you already proved me once that reality can be worse than my imagination... but this time I cannot help but wonder: were they among all who died in that village, protecting me? Were they already dead by that point? Did they send me away to protect me and then died? Or are they alive and in hiding? What if my search for them puts them in danger? If they've survived this long only to die because I'm looking for them... I would never forgive myself." She let out a sigh. "So I would rather stop searching for them and hope that maybe, if by some miracle, they're still alive, they might find their way to me someday..."

"I hope they will, for you Skye." Coulson told her honestly. "I hope you get the family you want, the family that you deserve."

"But I already have that family AC!" She told him with a sudden, bright smile. "It's right here on the Bus! Agent May, and Robot, and FitzSimmons and... and you... you're my family."

Coulson chose not to hold himself back, he embraced her tightly at that. He too considered her as someone special... probably not in the exact same way she did... but he chose not to focus on that.

**xXx**

It was late evening, the team had eaten dinner together and most of them were either in their bunks, or on their way there; knowing they needed to rest before the mission the following day. It wouldn't be easy, that was a given from the start with Ian Quinn being involved, and especially considering he seemed to have allied himself with the Clairvoyant, the same who had given Raina her orders, who lead Centipede...

Grant Ward was on his way to his bunk when he heard light noises from the cargo area. Curious, he went to check, only half-surprised when he found none other than his Rookie: Skye, doing some Tai-chi in a corner (May had taught her the basic in the last few weeks).

"You should be on bed, rookie." Grant told her authoritatively.

"I don't think I could sleep just yet, I'm too wired up with tomorrow's op." Skye told him as she began another kata.

"Yes well, if you don't rest enough tonight you might be too tired tomorrow to do things right." He commented flippantly. "On the other hand, you're there to handle communications, not to fight, so I don't see what the problem is."

"Do you know how many ops we've had where there was supposed to be no fighting, yet that's exactly what happened?" She asked him in a deadpan tone.

"No." He admitted, actually beginning to consider it.

"Me neither." She admitted with a shrug. "But the point remains, there have been such ops before, we need to be prepared."

"True." He agreed, then turned the tables on her. "And that includes sleeping properly."

She couldn't help it, she laughed, the side of his mouth actually tugged up in a half-smile.

"Go to your bunk now, rookie." He told her with fake coldness, while half-smirking. "Consider it an order if you must."

"Sir, yes sir!" She called dramatically before laughing loudly.

She did go to bed after that, the talk with Grant having put her enough at ease she could relax enough to sleep peacefully. She trusted her S.O. so much that if he told her things would be alright, she believed him.

**xXx**

At first she didn't feel the pain, just a sharp, almost piercing heat in the middle of her stomach. She was seeing the evil bastard Ian Quinn before her, she'd been babbling trying to keep him distracted until her team arrived, because she believed with all her heart they would... she'd lost the Night Night Gun, so all she could do was talk, and hope it would be enough, it wasn't.

So much had gone so completely opposite from the plan. It was supposed to be simple: find the package from Cybertech, tag it, track it... if possible use it to track Ian Quinn and then take him in. It was an undercover mission, no one was supposed to know they were on the train. Except they knew, somehow, they were sold out, and all the actual fighters of the team were lost along the way (she just hoped they were alright). Even Simmons had ended in some kind of catatonic-trance, leaving just her and Fitz to finish the mission. And they had to, failure wasn't an option, not against someone like Ian Quinn, all the hurt the bastard had already caused.

Fitz was even less of a fighter than she, which is why Skye decided to go in alone, asking him to disable the cars so Quinn wouldn't be able to get away. She moved through the house silently, in full-alert, endlessly praying for her backup to arrive. And then she'd reached the cellar, and found Mike inside that strange crystal chamber... and she'd been distracted. Quinn found her, rather than the other way around, and one of his sidekicks took her gun before she could use it.

She had heard the gunshot, and still it took several seconds for her mind to fully comprehend it; then, when the pain finally hit, the shock took her over. She'd never been shot, fired on, sure, but she'd never been shot, and her mind didn't know what to do, she was frozen. Not even all the training her SO had put her through was enough for what she had gotten into.

And then, right as she began to finally focus again, suddenly Ian Quinn was right there, in her personal space, practically in her face, he was holding her, and she didn't understand... then the pain doubled. A tiny cry left her lips, she didn't have any strength to truly speak.

She couldn't speak, could barely think, could hardly even breathe... she was half-aware as her body was laid down on the cellar's floor. It felt cold... or maybe she was the one who was cold. She knew she was losing blood very fast, had the bullets hit an artery or something? If they had, she was probably screwed...

She thought she heard Quinn whisper something before leaving, but couldn't be sure, his words seemed odd, considering what he'd just done.

"I'm sorry..." He seemed to have said. "I have my orders too..."

And why should he be sorry anyway? He was a bad guy, she was with the good guys, it was to be expected that he should try to kill her, or apparently succeed... Maybe it really was a bad idea for her to go after him on her own, after all, she was just a rookie...

She didn't know how long she lied there, bleeding, hurting, taking shallow breaths in an attempt not to hurt worse. Until she realized that she couldn't just lay there and give up, it just wasn't her. She was a fighter, had always been (apparently since she was an infant, considering all that had happened back then), and not only that, she was a survivor. And if she wanted to survive what was happening right then, she had to fight.

Focusing as much as she could, she found the door and then, making use of all the strength of her will, and ignoring the piercing pain as much as possible, she began moving. She held one hand over her stomach, trying to staunch the bleeding, while with the other she began to drag herself across the floor, in the direction of the door. It took her what seemed like forever, but eventually she managed to reach it, then pull herself so she was sitting up, her back against the wall right beside the door. Then, with an almost inhuman effort, she raised her hand and opened the door.

She wanted to call for help, wanted to scream and cry, and have someone hear her, her team hear her, save her... but her voice came out as barely a whisper, something no one would ever be able to hear, she could hardly hear herself...

"Help... Help...H..."

Regardless of it all, she kept calling until she had no more strength to speak. Her breath was failing her, and her hand had fallen on her lap, unable to keep pressure on her wound anymore. Unable to do anything anymore.

Her team hadn't arrived, regardless of how much she had called, prayed, out-loud and inside her mind, they hadn't come... it wasn't their fault, not really. She had known it was dangerous to go after Quinn on her own, but she just didn't want to let the bastard go again; she wanted to prove that she could be a good agent, she wanted to make her family proud...

As she lied there Skye began finally accepting that, unless some kind of miracle took place, she was, indeed, going to bleed to death in that cellar. In that moment she felt like a little girl again, and after using the last of her physical strength to wrap her bloodied hand around her locket, she did something she hadn't done in a very, very long time, she called out for her mother:

"Mother..."

And unknown to her, that was one call that crossed the boundaries of time and space...

* * *

While the first three chapters are basically the same as the original Menel, like I said before, I'm changing a few things around to fit episode 14: TAHITI, and also to lay the groundwork for what I hope to achieve with the rest of the series. Also, Lokidottir itself will be longer than three chapters, the rest will go into Skye finding out more about herself, and my version of some things in episode 1.15 Yes Men.

I hope to update this every week (and to begin working on the second part of the series as soon as the season in over on TV), however, that might change depending on my muse (I'm subject to her whims).

See ya around!

P.S. If there is something in particular you would like to see do not hesitate to ask, this is one of very few times where I'm posting a fic before I finish it, so there is a chance I might be able to fulfill wishes (depending on what I'm asked).

As always, full-sized poster and wallpaper are on my DeviantArt account (under the name Princess-Lalaith).


	2. Life and Death

**Chapter 2. Life and Death **

From the moment he found her, bleeding, dying, in that cellar in the south of Italy, Phil Coulson, Level 7 Agent of SHIELD, a man who'd been dead and then lived again, felt as if he were dying all over again. He was sure that even when Loki's scepter tore through his heart right before what was known as the Battle of New York he hadn't been in that much pain. He was also sure that the only reason he didn't lose himself to that pain was the hope, however small, that Skye might still live. He would do anything he could to make sure she lived...

Jemma Simmons was a blessing. Even though there was nothing she could do in that moment to save Skye, she saw the strange machine on the other side cellar and recognized it for what it was: a hyperbaric chamber, as well as the significance it had for Skye. So they placed the bleeding young woman inside it and hoped for the best. The changed pressure and lowered temperature allowed for Skye to breathe again, for there to be a pulse. Still, it was no magical cure.

It took two hours for the team to get to Zurich, Switzerland, the two longest hours they're ever lived. And once there all they could do was leave Skye in the hands of the doctors, and have faith. For the most part at least. Phil still kept trying to locate Fury. He'd been dead once, and been brought back, if they could do that to someone who'd been dead for days, who said they couldn't save Skye? She, at least, was still alive. The problem was that Fury wasn't answering his calls, he seemed to have gone off grid. That wasn't good.

It would be impossible for any member of the special team to tell just how long they sat in the small waiting room, completely tense, waiting for someone to give them news on Skye. And when those news finally came... they weren't good.

They had already known Skye was shot twice, and that it was bad; the large blood-stains on each of their hands and clothes, as well as the trail of blood several of them had noticed on the cellar floor, where Skye had dragged herself to try and reach the door, were telling enough. Still, none of them expected things to be so bad, there could be no hope. And then the doctor pronounced those awful, fateful words:

"I'm saying you need to call her family, and get them here as soon as possible." The doctor said quietly, seeing how affected they all were by the tragedy.

When he heard those words Phil could only think about the conversation he'd had with Skye, not even two weeks before...

_"But I already have that family AC!"_

"We're her family..." He blurted before he was even fully conscious of the words.

It was the truth. Regardless of whatever... more complicated feelings he might have for the young woman. They were her family by choice... they were all she had...

"In that case, I'm very sorry." The doctor told them softly.

None of them heard her, how could they when all they could think about was the young, beloved, comrade/friend/sister/more that was dying in that very moment just a few rooms away?

It took no time at all for Phil to decide he wasn't giving up on Skye, so with that in mind he made arrangements for her to be placed in a medpod which would then be loaded onto the Bus. If the doctors in Zurich said they could do nothing more for her that didn't mean there weren't other doctors elsewhere, who couldn't.

It was with some regret that he got May off Quinn, though he did give her time to get a few good punches in (and he would enjoy watching the recording of that... and showing it Skye i... when she woke up). Still, Melinda was the only one who could pilot the plane, and they needed to get to the States, so there was no other way.

"He deserves to die, not her." Melinda ranted.

It was so rare for her to react emotionally to anything ever since Bahrain that, for a few seconds, Phil actually did not know how to answer to that. In the end, he decided to keep her focus on Skye rather than the bastard Quinn.

"Agreed. But right now, Quinn doesn't matter, only Skye does, and I need you to pilot the plane." He told her seriously.

"You heard what the doctor said..." Melinda was confused at first.

"She said there was nothing more they could do for her, but there are doctors who brought me back from the dead." He reminded her. "If they can do that, I'm betting they can save Skye."

That was all the motivation May needed to get on the move.

It was a long flight, from Zurich to Bethesda, almost nine and a half hours, and Phil knew that not everyone in the team was confident Skye would make it that far, but the Leader simply refused to give up on her. She hadn't give up on him after all, and she'd been the one to find him, when Raina took him, and more importantly, when that thrice-damned machine trapped him in those awful nightmares/memories of Tahiti... she had saved him, both physically and mentally when she found him. And when he learnt the lenghts she'd gone to, to find him... he was so very proud of her, even more than he'd been when seeing Raina knocked out courtesy of Skye's punch. And then, as if all that wasn't enough, just hours later she saved him yet again...

_He woke up after yet another nightmare/memory; it would seem that after what that machine had done to his brain they were only going to get worse... more realistic. At least he hadn't woken up anyone with any screams (both Skye and May had revealed to having heard him back when Raina had him in that machine)... _

_Knowing there was no way he would be able to go back to sleep, and not wanting to just sit in his room, staring at the ceiling or the walls, he decided to walk a bit. They were still on land, as the plan was to take-off after breakfast for their next mission. He was still mentally debating between staying on the plane, or risk opening the bay door to walk around the airport (the downside being that the opening might wake-up someone) when he found out he wasn't the only one awake. Skye was sitting on one of the big chairs by the windows, legs pulled up against her chest, her eyes fixed straight outside. Her tablet dark, abandoned on the table before her, along with a half-empty mug of something...probably cocoa, judging by the smell. _

"_The milk should still be warm, if you want some." Skye commented without turning to look at him. "There's enough powdered-cocoa and cinnamon in the same cabinet as always." _

_It took Phil a couple of seconds, but then he realized she'd seen him reflected in the window pane, it was why she didn't need to turn. He also decided to take her offer, and soon was sitting on the chair across from her, mug of warm-cocoa in hand. _

_For a while not a word was spoken, and while he knew there was nothing wrong with silence, seeing her like that, somehow it didn't sit right with him. Maybe it was just that he wasn't used to being around her when she was so silent, but still. _

"_Shouldn't you be asleep?" He blurted out abruptly. _

"_Shouldn't you?" She countered, looking at him from the corner of her eye. "And anyway, sleep is hard to come by when your mind keeps coming back to the last thing you would wanna dream of..." She shook her head. "So I would rather just not sleep..." _

"_You had a nightmare?" He asked before he fully realized it. _

"_It's more like I'm preventing the nightmares from coming." She pointed out. "And judging by how you're sitting here in front of me, looking like that... I would say you're probably wishing you had done the same thing..." _

"_It's not like I can just stop sleeping forever." His almost petulant tone was enough to reveal that she was right in her assumption. _

"_True, but wouldn't that be perfect sometimes... though I suppose dreaming isn't always bad. Even nightmares sometimes can help..." _

"_Really?" _

"_Yes. Maybe after you've had them long enough you will decide to accept some help." _

_He wasn't expecting that, and honestly didn't know how to respond to her words. _

"_I'm not trying to force you to tell me anything." She half-babbled."Just thought I should point out: that thing you told me earlier, about Raina and her machine just messing with your head and things not being real? Crap, all of it." _

"_Skye?!" He was thoroughly shocked by her words. _

"_What?" She shrugged. "It is crap. You know that, and I know that. You saw something, and whatever it was, it was real enough to make you scream, to make you ask someone, I don't know who, to let you die..." She shivered involuntarily. "That is something I'm not likely to forget for as long as I live..." _

"_Wait a second..." Phil interrupted her. "Am I... Is that why you don't want to sleep? You think you'll have nightmares about me?" _

"_If you had seen what I saw..." Skye shivered yet again, then she shook her head. "Though I guess, you have enough with your own side of things." _

"_Skye, you know that if you ever need to talk to someone..." Phil began, not fully realizing how she might take those words. _

"_Is this a matter of: 'do as I say but not as I do'?" She retorted, finally turning to him and arching a brow. "I offer you my ear and you ignore me, then make me the same offer..." She let out a sigh. "Is that an Agent-requirement? Because I clearly remember Ward reacting similarly to my offer after the mess with the Berserker staff..." _

_Phil was taken by surprise, again, by her words. Before he could properly think of something to say to her, Skye was on her feet, half-empty mug in her hands and she was turning to leave. _

"_I died." He called to her, blurting the words out before she could think too much about them, change his mind about revealing the truth. _

"_What?" She spun around sharply, shocked. _

"_I died." He repeated. "Not for eight seconds, or forty... I died for days..." _

"_But you're alive..." Skye gasped, not fully noticing as she went back to her chair. _

"_I was dead... and they brought me back." He sentenced. _

He told her the whole truth that night (or early-morning, depending on point of view). She was the only person he'd ever trusted that much. Even Melinda, the things she knew, he hadn't been the one to share them with her. And Skye had sat there, and listened, saying not a word.

In the hour before dawn, when he'd finished recounting everything he could remember, and what it all made him feel, and they'd all finished their cocoa; she had just held his hands in hers. Not a word was said, but it wasn't necessary, he could feel her caring; maybe not her understanding because there was no way she could understand (and he would never wish that for her), but she accepted everything he said, never doubting his words, regardless of how impossible most of it sounded even to his own ears. And she was there for him, he knew that, and he somehow knew she would always be... it was a silent promise they had made to each other...

And he had broken that promise. He hadn't been there for her when she and Fitz had followed the package from Cybertech to that villa in south Italy... when she went alone after Quinn... when that bastard shot her in the stomach, twice, and then left her for dead... if they hadn't arrived when they did she might not have made it to the hospital, and even then... the doctor's words still made echo inside his mind:

"_There's been too much damage..." _

That was bad enough, but what followed:

"_We can keep her comfortable, but you'll need to make a decision on whether or not you want to keep her on life support." _

That broke his heart. But he refused to give up. And so he decided on trying something that was a one in a million chance... getting to the people who had somehow managed to resurrect him, and get them to save her. As he stood just outside the med-pod, watching Skye connected to all the machines keeping her alive, after Ward had left after agreeing with his decision of ignoring HQs command of releasing Ian Quinn to them before leaving... he could only stand there and hope with all he had that they would make it to Bethesda on time.

"Hang on Skye... please..." He whispered, a hand pressed to the glass walls of the pod. "Just a little longer... please hang on... I will find a way to save you..."

He didn't know that the solution he hoped for was an impossible one, for there was no hospital in Bethesda, and no doctors that knew of any 'miracle' treatment that could save Skye. And yet a miracle did exist, and was already on the way...

**xXx**

In a private garden in Asgard, full of flowers and surrounded by a ring of trees that usually could only be seen in a very specific forest in Alfheim, there was a deafening cry.

It took the King just an instant to appear in the middle of the garden, dropping the spell that made him look like the Allfather with just a thought. His beloved was in between some of the flowers, curled on herself, crying almost hysterically.

"Tawariel?" He asked as he approached her.

When she raised her head and her honey eyes fixed on him he noticed she seemed to be standing on a ledge (figuratively), like he had been after the torture from the Mad Titan somehow managed to break the seal the Allfather had put on his memories, when he'd remembered the woman he loved and child she was expecting, when he'd realized all he'd lost...

"What is it my love?" He asked her, deeply worried. "What is wrong? Why do you cry?"

"She's... dying..." The she-elf gasped in despair. "She's dying..."

"Who...?" Loki's mind clicked and he realized what she meant an instant later. "Meneliel is dying! How? Why?!"

"I don't know!" Tawar practically screeched in despair. "My baby-girl is dying and I'm not there! I can hear her, inside my mind, calling for me, for her mother... and I cannot reach her!"

Loki, who was about to begin pacing in despair himself, stopped abruptly that line of thought as he processed what his beloved had just said.

"You can hear her?" He inquired. "Right now?"

"Not right now, not anymore." Tawar nodded, still crying. "I can only hear the echo of her voice in the ether... but I know it's her!"

"You can sense her?" He insisted.

"Yes!" She almost snapped.

"Then focus on her, with all your energies." He told her. "You will be our guide and my magic will get us to her."

Tawar didn't need anything more to be said. Making use of all her training in the mind-arts (which she had to go through, having been a royal, even if she had very little magic herself and was no spellweaver), the she-elf focused on her daughter's presence, on everything she knew about her, both from the old visions and from what she'd been able to pick on when the call first reached her, what seemed an eternity and mere seconds before; she'd stopped hearing her child's voice at some point, but whatever it was that had actually opened the connection was still in place, and it allowed her to reach back.

From an instant to the next the two seemed to sink into the ground, or more precisely, the shadow at their feet. Loki didn't even try to see where they were going, not the specific location, or even the realm; he just held onto the connection his beloved had formed to their daughter, and let the magic get them there.

They would find Menel, and they would save her... He would see to their daughter's safety, if it was the last thing he did.

**xXx**

In the Bus, Phil was standing guard beside the bed where Skye lay, inside the med-pod. She had gotten May to pilot the plane high, above the height most planes could reach. He knew the people at HQs wouldn't like that he'd refused to surrender Ian Quinn to them for interrogation; but he refused to do so until Skye got better (and she would get better). Thus, they were high enough no one would be able to board them.

He'd managed to convince Simmons to step out of the pod briefly, eat something, take a breath, maybe even rest some; Phil had promised he would keep careful watch over Skye and would alert the biochem (and 'involuntary team doctor') if anything happened.

One moment everything seemed to be normal, and in the next Phil noticed something out of the ordinary from the corner of his eye. Training kicking in he spun around, gun on his hand, safe off, instantly, the sight that met his eyes was one he'd never expected.

"Loki?!" He cried out.

The shock was such that for a moment he didn't move. The Agent wasn't sure he wasn't just hallucinating, or dreaming, maybe he'd fallen asleep standing guard over Skye... the thought was enough to put him completely on alert again. Dream or no dream, there was no way in heaven or hell he was letting the evil bastard who'd pretty much killed him anywhere close to the wounded young woman, her life was already hanging by a thread.

"Didn't I kill you?" The black-haired man asked, seemingly as confused by the Agent's presence as Phil was by his. "I thought you were supposed to be dead."

"Yeah well, according to the files I read on what happened in London last month, so were you." Phil answered in his most dry tone.

"Maybe we're both just too stubborn to die." Loki shrugged before giving a step forward. "Now, if you'll just let me..."

"Don't even think about it." Phil aimed the gun at him. "You're not getting anywhere close to Skye, god or no god, you're not."

"As if you could stop me..." Loki sneered at him.

"I won't let you hurt her further!" Phil insisted.

"Who says I want to hut her?" Loki challenged. "I'm here to help her."

"The last time I saw you, you stabbed me, in the heart!" Phil reminded him in a snap. "So I think I have a very good reason not to believe a single word you say."

It looked like Loki was about to say something else but before he could even open his mouth a hand on his arm stopped him. It was until then that Phil noticed the god of lies wasn't alone, with him was a brunette woman with honey eyes, in a loose dark tunic and breeches (what she'd been wearing as she worked on her garden); she reminded the Head-Agent powerfully of someone, but couldn't place who exactly. Still, her presence was an unknown, and it only made him even more nervous. The only reason he hadn't called for his team already was the fear he felt at what Loki might do to them.

"Philip, Son of Coul?" The woman addressed him. "That is you, am I right?"

"Yes." He nodded, turning to her, though without lowering his gun from aiming at Loki. "I'm afraid I don't know who you are, miss."

"I am Tawar, d... from the House of the Midnight Blossom." She informed him in a very formal tone. "I promise you, in the name of my ancestors, that we are not here to hurt you, or the young lady in the bed behind you. In fact, we're here to save her."

"Why would you do that?" Phil asked, suspiciously.

It took a moment for the woman to answer, but when she did, Phil knew he couldn't be dreaming, his imagination simply wasn't that good; the words she said he could have never expected:

"Because the young lady laying on that bed is my daughter." She told him quietly yet full of emotion. "Our daughter, in fact."

"What?!" Phil's shock was great at that.

"Look." Tawar began talking fast in her nervousness. "I know you have no reason to trust me, much less him; but unless you give us a chance, Menel is gonna die."

"Her name is Skye..." The Agent corrected her.

"I know." Tawar smiled brightly at him. "That's what I named her."

"But you just said..." Phil began.

"Menel is a word from my language." She clarified. "It means sky... I gave her that name to honor her father, for the one thing she inherited from him... the eyes." Knowing what the Agent would say next she went on. "I know her eyes won't look like his right now, I had to change them, so she would be able to hide, brown was an easy color, enough humans have it that no one would find it odd. If anyone who's ever known Loki were to see her real eyes they would have no doubt just who her father was."

Phil still did not believe what the woman had said; but he was logical enough to know that if those two, Loki especially, really wanted to hurt anyone on the plane, they would all be dead already; which meant that at least some of what they were saying had to be true.

"If you're really her parents." He asked. "Where have you been the last twenty-four years?"

For a second it looked like Loki's fury was going to take over, until once again a hand on his arm calmed him down.

"The story is long, and hard." Tawar told him quietly. "I would much prefer it if I didn't have to tell it more than once; and if there is anyone who deserves to know, it is M... Skye. I can tell you this, though; it wasn't by our choice."

Phil knew it would have to be enough, it wasn't like he could actually stop either from taking Skye if they wanted, especially not Loki; and they had been quite patient with him.

He moved around the medical bed to leave the way clear when, just their luck, Jemma stepped into the area. She might have never met Loki, but she'd seen footage from New York; the moment she realized just who he was, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Loki shut her up with a wave of his hand, but by then she'd already called the attention of all the others on the Bus. The Engineer and Jemma's boyfriend, Leo Fitz, came down the same hallway she had, wielding a Night Night Gun in his hands; he shot at Loki the moment he saw him, before fully processing who he was. The shot did nothing to Loki, except distract him, allowing May to get close enough to him to deliver a kick, and then Ward. It was at that point that Loki lost his cool, sending them all tumbling back down the hall with a wave of his hand (though he was still careful enough to make sure neither the hits nor his magic would damage the med-pod behind him in any way. The Agents jumped back on their feet almost as fast as they'd gone down; they were about to try and attack again (which would probably have sent Loki over the edge), when Tawar intervened.

"Enough!" She yelled with all her authority. "I know that no one around here trusts us but if your insistence on attacking us ends up costing my only child her life I will make sure the rest of your life is Hell! And trust me, I know its queen, I can arrange for that!"

The statement was shocking enough to stop everyone in their tracks.

"What the hell is she talking about?!" Ward demanded after a few seconds.

"Apparently they are Skye's birth-parents." Phil offered from beside Skye's bed.

"That's impossible!" Several voices called in denial at the same time.

"STOP IT!" Tawar yelled. "When are you going to understand that there is no time for this?! Menel is dying!" She fixed her eyes on Loki. "I can feel it. She's slipping. I'm holding onto her as hard as I can... but it soon won't be enough."

Somehow her words seemed to be enough to get Simmons moving. She ignored the two outsiders completely as she walked past them and into the med-pod, immediately moving to the machines, she couldn't help the gasp when she noticed the readings.

"She's right!" She announced to the others. "Her pulse is dangerously low... I don't think she's even breathing anymore..."

"She's turning blue..." Phil added in a heart-broken tone.

"And she's bloody freezing even with all the blankets I've placed on her!" Jemma cried out, horrified after placing a hand on Skye's forehead.

"That's... actually not a bad thing." Loki offered as he took a look at the girl himself.

"What the hell does that mean?!" Ward demanded, watching all the proceedings from outside the med-pod. "How can turning blue for lack of oxygen and being freezing cold not be a bad thing?!"

"Because that's not why she's turning blue." Loki explained quietly. "It's her heritage surfacing. The cold confirms it." He shook his head. "Right now those blankets are hurting her more than they're helping her. She needs the cold..."

Tawar nodded, understanding; the humans didn't.

For all answer Loki extended an arm over the bed, allowing it to shift to his Jotun appearance. Jemma's eyes widened slightly, but she controlled herself almost right away, deciding to simply go with it and take away the blankets (it's not like they were doing any good anyway).

"Even if that's true, she's still dying." She admitted quietly. "I thought we would have more time..." Her eyes filled with tears. "At this rate she won't make it to the States..."

"She doesn't have to." Tawar told her.

"Can you get her there?" Phil asked, interested.

"I could, but that's not what she meant." Loki said shaking his head. "I may be able to heal her."

"May?" They didn't like the lack of confirmation in those words.

It still seemed to be enough for Simmons, who pulled off the remaining blankets in a rush before stepping out of the way completely.

"Jemma!" Fitz cried out, obviously not expecting that.

"Didn't you hear me?" She asked. "We're still hundreds of miles away from any medical facility! Skye won't make it that far. Right now he is her best chance."

No one had a reply to that, they knew it was true.

"You need to take that tube out of her throat." Loki informed the biochem. "My magic, along with her own healing once it kicks in, will make it so that thing will only impede her breathing."

She didn't question him, simply doing as told quietly and efficiently.

"Should we arrange her somehow for you to have better access to the wound or something?" She asked once she was done with that.

"No." Loki shook his head. "See that hand? She's holding the locket, Tawar's locket. It's what allowed the two of them to connect, if you take it off her hand the connection will break and right now that link is the only thing keeping her alive."

The revelation sobered all of them, though it was the mention of the locket that began, finally, convincing them that the two immortals might be telling the truth. There was also, in the corner of the minds of some of them, the question of how and when Skye had come to hold her locket. She'd been unconscious since South Italy... was it that she somehow had been holding it all along and even the doctors hadn't moved her hand from it? If Loki was right that might have been the only reason she survived...

"You have to save her Loki..." Tawar whispered in an almost broken voice.

"I promise you." He assured his match.

The she-elf could ask for nothing more.

Minutes passed, every member of the team had their eyes fixed on Loki as he kept drawing intricate designs on the air, right above Skye's wounds, all the while murmuring under his breath in another language; spell after spell, focusing on undoing damage, restoring what was lost, healing. Never stopping for anything.

Eventually Simmons noticed that the brunette woman who had arrived with him was talking too; she was kneeling on the opposite side of Skye from where Loki stood, hands clasped together, pressed against her chest, whispering in yet another language:

"A Elbereth Gilthoniel,  
silivren penna míriel  
o menel aglar elenath!  
Na-chared palan-díriel  
o galadhremmin ennorath,  
Fanuilos, le linnathon  
nef aear, sí nef aearon!"

"Are you doing magic too?" Jemma couldn't help but ask, guessing that if she was, the woman would just ignore her and keep going.

"No." She shook her head, turning to the young human. "I am no spellweaver. I can do some basic things, but nothing in the scale Serrure is working on..."

"Excuse me, Serrure?" May inquired.

"Sorry, Loki." Tawar smile. "At times, when I am distracted or nervous, I tend to call him by the name I gave him when we were younger." She turned to Simmons again. "So no, what I was whispering wasn't a spell, it was a chant... you could almost call it a prayer. The oldest song of my people, a call to our Mother. Usually we use it when we want to dedicate something to her, right now I'm hoping she will hear me, see my need, that she will help protect my child..."

"Mother?" Fitz was thoroughly confused.

"I am one of the Ljósálfar, you would call us elves." Tawar explained. "We believe that the great goddess Elbereth, the queen of the heavens, created the stars, and through them she placed the light in our eyes. She's therefore our Mother, she listens to us, to our joys and pains, and she knows our needs, like any mother would..."

"I don't think Skye's mother heard her for the longest time..." Ward muttered darkly.

"Ward!" FitzSimmons were horrified at his rebuke.

"It's alright." She assured them, though the hurt showed in her eyes, for all who saw her. "You care for my child, I will never be able to thank you enough for that. However, I want to leave one thing very clear: us abandoning her, it wasn't of our own free will. There were extenuating circumstances, which we will reveal when Me... Skye has woken. Also, the reason we are here right now is because she called to me. She held onto that locket, my locket, which I placed around her neck right before I had to let her go, less than two days after she was born... she held onto that, and called to me... and I answered."

As if on cue, Loki stopped chanting right then. He dropped his hands and even swayed slightly, thoroughly exhausted as he was.

At first no one in the team noticed anything different. Skye's clothes were still red with blood, her skin still looked almost sickly pale. Then, right as they were all about to panic, everyone could hear a light gasp, and then a pair of eyes snapped open.

"Skye!" Several people called at once.

It was all a flurry of movement after that. May and Phil moved automatically to help Loki away from Skye (his swaying was becoming more pronounced); while Jemma rushed to check Skye's vitals thoroughly; Tawar remained on her spot, kneeling and watching everything in silence, while Leo and Ward watched through one of the crystal walls of the med-pod (the space was too small inside and they didn't want to crowd Skye when she was just recovering).

"Oh..." Jemma gasped abruptly.

"What is it?" Ward was on alert all over again instantly.

"Her eyes..." Jemma explained quietly.

"Wha... what's wrong with my eyes?" Skye asked, trying and failing to sit up.

"Stay down, you're too weak to try moving." Jemma half-chastised her. "And there's nothing wrong with your eyes."

"You were saying something about my eyes." Skye insisted, though she did settle back down.

"They're beautiful." Jemma blurted out.

"They changed color." Leo Fitz clarified. "They were brown before and now... now they're this mix of blue-green-gray..."

"What the..." Skye was completely confused by that. "Why the hell would that happen?!"

"Because the spell keeping your identity hidden, and with it whatever might reveal the true you, fell when your life was endangered." A soft, melodic voice called from her other side.

Instantly Skye turned her head in the other direction, looking straight at the woman in the dark tunic and breeches kneeling beside her bed.

"I know you..." The still weak girl whispered. "I heard your voice, in my dreams..." She fought to clear up her fuzzy memories of what she instinctively knew had been more than a dream. "You were holding onto me, refusing to let go... you called me... called me... Li...Lirima...

"Lirimaer amin..." Tawar finished for her, going to kneel beside the cot, taking one of Skye's hands in hers. "It means My lovely one... it's what you are to me, what you've always been... it's what I called you a day and a half after you were born, the last time I saw you and held you in my arms, so small, so beautiful... my child, my treasure..."

"Mother..." Skye whispered in shock.

Her eyes closed and her body went limp a second after that.

"She's only asleep." Jemma clarified before everyone could go into a panic, again. "Even though her wound has been healed, Skye still lost a lot of blood. It's likely she will sleep for a while, and be tired for days if not weeks as she fully recovers from the ordeal."

"We have no blood on board for a transfusion." May pointed out.

"Would that even work with her, considering who her parents are?" Ward inquired.

At some point, with everything that had happened, the team had stopped doubting Loki's and Tawar's words and moved on to dealing with the revelations. They knew it wouldn't be easy, but Skye's health was more important than anything else, even discovering that her father was a psychopathic god who had attempted to conquer the world once already.

"We don't have blood-bags, but we could set up a direct transfusion." Jemma suggested. "Her mother would be the best candidate..."

Since Tawar had no idea what a blood transfusion was (they had no such things in Alfheim and she hadn't been long enough on Midgard to learn such things), FitzSimmons explained carefully what it was, why such things were done, and the basics of how it was done to her. In the end all the she-elf needed to know was that it would help her daughter and was safe enough (for Skye above anything else); she was willing to do pretty much anything after that, her instincts as a mother superseding any fear or ignorance.

While that was happening inside the med-pod, outside it Loki chose to approach Coulson. The man eyed him warily, though he didn't raise his gun again; it might also have helped that he knew his team would help if the god of lies were to try anything (and after seeing how hard he'd worked to save the girl he claimed as his daughter, it was unlikely he would hurt any of them), he must be able to see Skye loved them.

"Son of Coul..." Loki nodded with what almost seemed like respect.

"Loki..." Phil didn't know what else to say.

"So, when can I expect the armed guards to arrive, or maybe even my 'dear older brother'?" Loki inquired with fake cheer.

Phil could see through the god's charade, he was on guard, but not like a man readying himself for a life-or-death battle, more like a man on death-row... almost.

"We're currently flying too high to properly establish contact with any other plane or land HQs." Phil announced with a shrug.

"Does that mean you and your team will be the ones taking me in?" The god insisted. "I imagine it will be enough to give you legendary status in your human organization. The group who captured the insane evil god... that is, if your return from the dead didn't grant you that already..."

Phil shrugged again, refusing to answer either implied question.

"Anyway." Loki pretended not to care. "I would appreciate it if you would wait at least until I can finish explaining things to my daughter. She deserves that much."

"That she does." Phil agreed. "That and much more..." He turned to May, beside him. "Set course for HQs in New York."

"Are you sure that's a good idea sir?" May inquired. "I can see why we're not going to Bethesda anymore, but at this point it would be easier to turn around and land in London HQs, it's by far closer than New York..."

"Just do it." Phil insisted. "Set course for New York."

May decided not to insist and instead went to the cockpit to set the course. Loki didn't say anything, instead walking slowly to where his beloved was laying on a pull-out cot, a thin tube connecting her arm to that of their daughter, sharing blood. She was sleeping, the stress of everything she'd done to keep their daughter alive until he could finish healing her, taking a toll on her. And even when all the difficulties he knew were bound to come his way once the aircraft landed, seeing his two most beloved people laying side by side in that moment was enough to convince the once maniac god that things would turn out alright in the end.

**xXx**

Morning came when they were still at least a couple of hours away from New York HQs. They were also still very high in the sky, and while May was quite sure some people must be quite crossed at not being able to reach them (either through the comms or physically) she did not even try to insist that they establish any contact. Even if she (and at least Ward) deeply disliked Loki (for what he'd once done if for nothing else), she also respected Coulson too much to go against his orders if it wasn't absolutely necessary.

Some people also couldn't help but think it might even be a good thing. Give time for Skye to get better, so people at HQs wouldn't insist on getting her checked out in their infirmary (who knows what they might discover about her); and also so explanations regarding the couple of immortals who claimed to be her parents could be given.

Skye and Tawar both slept for six hours or so before waking up almost in unison.

"She shouldn't be awake so soon..." Jemma mumbled worriedly. "Skye's nowhere near recovered, she should still be sleeping."

"She's half-elf." Loki pointed out from where he'd spent the night, sitting in a corner, watching the two women sleep. "That means she doesn't need as many hours of sleep as a human does. She may have lived the last twenty-four years as a human, but after what happened her heritage will begin to manifest. It's happening already, not just with her sleep, but also the change in her eye color, the way her skin was so cold, and even now she's more comfortable since you lowered the temperature in the pod than she was before."

It was true, at Loki's insistence Fitz had lowered the temperature inside the med-pod, enough that anyone who entered it made sure to have a jacket on first (except Loki and Skye, obviously), Tawar was covered by a cloak her match had conjured for her during the night.

"Her mother's blood running through her veins will help too." Loki continued his explanation. "I imagine she will recover fairly quickly from this, and if anything were ever to happen to her again; you will also begin noticing that she becomes faster, stronger, more agile, is capable of enduring more than she used to be." When seeing Jemma's worried expression he added. "She won't change who she is in essence, who she's grown to be mentally and emotionally. She will still be herself just... more durable."

The biochem nodded and smiled, satisfied with that.

Tawar was completely awake by that point, sitting up on the cot; her left arm folded up, with a cotton ball in the inside of her elbow, where her blood had been taken (Jemma had taken the needle out at some point during the night, when it was decided she'd donated enough blood already); while on her right she was holding a cup with a special healing tea she'd prepared out of some of her own herbs (she'd had them in her bag when they left Asgard).

The biochem had just placed a cotton ball in the inside of Skye's elbow after taking out the needle and was checking her vitals one more time, when Skye's eyes opened.

"J...Jemma?" She asked in a drowsy tone.

"Hello honey." Jemma smiled at her dear friend. "How are you feeling?"

"Alright... I think." Skye seemed confused in more ways that one. "I had the strangest dream..."

When Skye looked down at herself she did a double-take; she remembered clearly going with Fitz to the mansion in South Italy, remembered going after Quinn on her own, hoping her team would catch up; she remembered the pain when she'd been shot, twice, and then when she'd forced herself to move, dragging herself across the cellar's floor to reach the door; she could remember trying to scream for help and her voice coming out barely above a whisper... she remembered quietly calling for her mother... and someone answering. Or had that last part been a dream? Had all of it?

She didn't understand. She wasn't wearing the clothes she'd chosen for the undercover op. Instead in that moment she was wearing a nice sleeveless off-white top with an abstract print in shades of blue, green and brown, it looked almost like a twisted tree with blue flowers (or maybe the blue was the sky...), and jean-shorts, her feet bare. Strangest thing was she felt quite comfortable despite how little she was wearing, not cold at all.

"I don't think it was a dream, honey..." She only half-heard Jemma speak.

The reason was that Skye had chosen that very moment to turn to a side and notice the woman sitting on the cot that had been arranged beside hers. She was tall, with a slender figure, tanned skin and loose waves of chocolate brown hair falling over her shoulders; she was wearing what Skye thought was a simple but nice set of long-sleeved dark loose shirt and equally dark pants, parts of it concealed by the forest-green cloak on her.

"I saw you..." Skye whispered, not even noticing she was speaking out-loud. "In my dream..."

"It wasn't a dream." Tawar said, her eyes growing glassy with held-back tears. "You were dying, and you called for me. I reached back and held you, held you tightly until your body could be healed and you could recover..."

"I called for you..." Skye repeated, slowly beginning to connected the dots. "But that would mean..." She automatically reached for the pendant hanging from her neck. "Mother..."

"Yes..." Tawar nodded as the first tear fell.

"No..." Skye shook her head almost violently in denial. "That cannot be..."

"But it is." Tawar insisted.

"If it is, where have you been all these years?!" Skye demanded, her voice turning vicious. "Where were you when I was on the streets, sleeping in a van, because I couldn't even pay for a motel room for a night? Where were you when the life I was trying to build for myself crumbled beneath my feet and I was forced to erase myself from any and every record just so I wouldn't have every government agency after me? Where were you when I kept bouncing between foster homes, with no family to call my own, feeling that no one wanted me? Where were you when people kept dying to protect me as an infant? When a whole village in China was razed to the ground for protecting me?!"

"A whole..." Tawar lost her voice before she could finish the sentence. "Oh Spirits! Oh Goddess! How... how... Xiefa!"

The she-elf went into hysterics after that; enough that Skye forced herself to calm down. She still wasn't buying that the woman was her mother, but it was obvious she'd known nothing about what Skye had been through, or what had happened in China. Still did not explain how she could be who she claimed and not know...

Then, as if she didn't already have enough reason to be in denial and very nervous, Skye noticed a black-haired man dressed in green silk and dark leather kneeling beside the woman to comfort her; the younger woman had no trouble knowing who he was, even without her hacking, there was enough footage of both the battle of New York and the mess in Stuttgart going around online; and that nearly froze her in shock.

"What the hell is Loki doing here?!" She cried out.

"According to him and the woman beside him, he's your father." Jemma informed her.

Skye had barely opened her mouth to scream her denial when Phil joined them and said something that destroyed everything she knew, or thought she knew:

"He's the one who saved your life, Skye..."

As he knelt there, beside his match, trying to offer a comfort he wished for himself, feeling more than actually hearing his daughter's denial, her rejection, a part of Loki couldn't help but wonder if that was how the rest of his children had felt: Hela, Fenrir, Jormungandr... Had the people of Asgard made them feel like that? He'd known from the very start it was a bad idea to take them to the Realm Eternal, but the absence of Angrboda had made any other option impossible. Still, maybe if he'd tried harder, if he'd left with them... how many things would be different if he'd made other choices? A lot of them certainly, but would that mean that he wouldn't be with Tawar? That he would have never been with her? Would Menel not exist then? If only for that, everything else he'd gone through just might be worth it... he just hoped he would have a better chance at actually being a father to his youngest child than he'd had with all the others...

Loki might have just met Skye, might not truly know her yet; but she was his daughter, and for that sole reason he loved her. He just hoped she could someday grow to love him and her mother as well... hopefully...

* * *

Changes for this part: Scenes have been modified to fit (somewhat) with episode 1.14 TAHITI. I also added Phil's memory of his talk with Skye.

Coming next: Loki's and Tawar's revelation of their past and how it all connects to Skye.


	3. Secrets and Truths

**Chapter 3. Secrets and Truths **

An hour or so after waking, having had a hot shower and some breakfast (courtesy of Jemma and Leo) Skye felt more like herself, and ready to face the people who claimed to be her parents. She still wasn't convinced herself, but after learning that she owed her life to them, she was willing to at least give them a chance.

They all arranged themselves in the lounge. Skye was seated in the middle of the biggest sofa, with Jemma and Phil each on one side of her, Grant was behind, resting on the back of the sofa, Leo sitting on the armrest beside Jemma, and Melinda May was sitting on her own in the smallest sofa, closest to Phil's side. Tawar and Loki were sitting together in the love-seat, right across from their daughter.

"Ok, we're all here." Skye declared, trying her best to hide her nervousness. "Lets get this over with. Shall we?"

"Before we go into the story proper, I want to leave something very clear." Tawar announced, eyes fixed straight on Skye. "It is true you grew up alone, and I can see now that has hurt you in ways I cannot begin to comprehend, but you need to know that it wasn't by our choice or will. We... I had to let you go, for your own safety. So you might have a chance at a life... I didn't want to do it, it felt like it would kill me to do it... but it was the only way to make sure you would live, and be free..." She sighed. "I wouldn't change the past, because what I did was necessary, for you, but if I could, I would have done anything so you would be happy and not only safe."

"Who killed all those people in China, and the Agents?" Skye asked the question that worried her most the first. "Was it really me they were after?"

Skye had taken a moment after breakfast to share with FitzSimmons and her SO the truth about her origins, or at least as much as they knew. Jemma had embraced her, telling her nothing had to change, Leo had apologized profusely for his thoughtless words on the train, while Ward had berated her for keeping something like that to herself when she could have had their support. They were her team, but more than that, they were her family...

"It was Odin." Both answered at the same time.

"Odin?!" Several members of the team cried out in shock.

"Odin as in the King of Asgard, that Odin?!" Simmons babbled in shock.

"Technically the former King... I've since relieved him of his duty." Loki answered with what sounded like satisfaction. "He's a sick bastard who feels joy at causing pain to everyone around, especially me... and my children."

"Children?!" That made Skye react.

"Indeed, you are not my only child, though you are the youngest, and the only one I've had with Tawariel." Loki told her. "You are also the only one who has a free life, outside of the influence of Odin and Asgard..."

Ever so slowly the people in the Bus began to understand things were far more serious than it might have seemed at first instance. The introduction at least was enough to finish convincing Skye to at least hear them out.

Loki decided to begin their quite complicated story himself.

"At times it might seem like I'm digressing too much, but I promise I've got a point." Loki said before going into the story itself. "I was born almost eleven centuries ago, at the end of the last and bloodiest inter-dimensional war. It was between Jotunheim and Asgard, though the last part of it took place here, in your world. It's how you ended having stories of us."

"The Berserker staff..." Leo murmured in understanding.

"What?" Tawar didn't know what he was talking about.

"You mean one one of those things was left here?" Loki's eyes narrowed. "It's an extremely dangerous artifact..."

"We know." Ward cut him off, his hand twitching slightly as he remembered what he'd gone through. "It's in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody now."

"Not sure how reassuring that is, I was once in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, after all." Loki half-smirked at him. "In any case, I never liked those things. Battle-lust on its own is already a dangerous thing to deal with; augmented by an object like that? It made them beyond irrational. The worst is that most hadn't been Warriors beforehand, so they didn't know how to deal with the effects of the rage and the blood-lust... some never came out of it."

"I thought you said you were born after the war..." May muttered, unsure.

"At the end of it." Loki corrected. "And I read enough, and have met enough people in my life to know about things."

"Thor told us once you were adopted." Phil commented suddenly.

"It is true." Loki admitted with a huff. "Though I did not know that for the longest time. So, if you'll bear with me. I will continue with the story in the proper order. I believed myself to be the son of Odin and Frigga, the King and Queen of Asgard, younger brother of Thor. I grew as such. Still, from a very young age I knew the Allfather preferred Thor, it wasn't hard to see why. Thor was everything a good Asgardian was supposed to be: strong, with light hair and eyes, proficient in the arts of war, loud and wild... I was all the opposite: quiet, lithe, I preferred reading and practicing magic to doing war, and thought things over before acting. I got along well with Mother, whom I never doubted loved me, Odin was another story."

Even with just that little told the team was beginning to notice patterns: like the fact that not only Loki hated Odin, but he would never refer to him as family, Frigga was another matter entirely, and Thor... they weren't sure just yet.

"By the time we were teenagers Thor was well-loved by everyone, while I was treated with doubt at best and contempt at worst." Loki went on. "All because I did not act like a proper Asgardian, a proper son of Odin." He snorted. "I did not care. I learnt from a young age to stay as far away as I could from Thor and his wild, idiotic stunts. The last time I tried to please my father in any way was when the Wall of Asgard was built. No one knows what the builder's name was, only that he promised the gods he could do it in three seasons, and the payment he wanted for such service was the goddess Freya, the most beautiful of all goddesses, the sun and the moon. It was even assured that the builder would do it with help of no man, and only the assistance of his stallion: Svadilfari. The gods agreed, convinced as they were that there was no way the builder could do as he'd assured." Loki shook his head. "Three days before the Summer Solstice, the deadline, the builder was really close to finishing. The gods began to panic. I remember that night clearly. I had stayed late in the library, reading, and on my way to my room after a late snack I heard the man I still considered my Father then, move with unease. I asked him what was wrong, what worried him. He tried to send me away, or at least pretended to, but I insisted; he asked me if I could keep a secret. I felt so delighted that he seemed to trust me, that I vowed never to say a word of what he revealed to me in confidence, to anyone." He made a pause before adding. "What you need to take in consideration here is that a vow made by one of us, and I'm not talking about being Aesir, which we all know I'm not, really, but someone with any kind of connection to magic. A vow we make, can never be broken, magic makes sure of that. If we were ever to even try it, magic would extract a heavy price, and aside from that, we would be forever known as Forsworn."

"Then how is it you're known as the God of Lies?" Skye wanted to know.

"That is because I am especially good at twisting words enough I can conceal what I truly mean, without ever actually saying a lie." Loki told her honestly. "I don't do it most of the time, mind you; and I'm not even the only one who does it. However, once one person called me god of lies, it stuck. I'm far prouder of the title of god of mischief, though!"

Tawar just shook her head with a small smile.

"As some of you may or may not know already, depending how good your Norse mythology is, you have an idea what happened then." Loki went back to the main story. "Though I will tell you now they've gotten quite a lot wrong..." He shook his head. "Anyway, I promised the Allfather that I would take care of things. I thought I was being a hero, I didn't realize he was just using me... I shape-shifted, something I'd only recently discovered I could do. And with the form of a mare distracted the builder's stallion for three nights so he wouldn't finish the wall in time. I saved the Lady Freya, the sun and the moon... do you think anyone thanked me? No, Odin, and everyone else, they acted as if things had been exactly as they planned, as if it had all happened because they willed it. And maybe that's a way to see it. Me... I ended having to stay in the form of a mare for almost a full-year, when I gave birth to an eight-legged foal." His eyes became glassy as he remembered that time. "He could have changed, taken human form, I know he could have... but he was never given a chance. Before I could fully recover from the ordeal and change into Aesir Odin was there, he placed a spell on the newborn child, so it would forever remain in that form, as a horse... then he threatened to tell everyone that I was a deviant, into bestiality and dark magic, if I ever tried to claim him. And I could have never explained the truth because I'd vowed never to reveal what he'd shared with me!" A tear fell down his cheek. "I named him. Odin didn't like it, but afterwards Sleipnir refused to answer to any name but the one I gave him, so there was nothing he could do. I was allowed to see him once a week, for an hour, and I was to never tell anyone he was mine. For all of Asgard he would be nothing but Odin's steed..."

"But you're telling us now..." Leo was confused.

"Because he made me swear never to speak a word of it in Asgard, nothing was ever said of doing it elsewhere..." Loki actually smirked, showing the team just a bit of the kind of games of words he played.

"After that event, I promised myself I would never fall into Odin's games again." Loki continued. "I did my best to stay as far away from him as possible; taking the chance to explore the Realm Eternal as much as I could. When I eventually grew tired of exploring Asgard I learnt the secret ways out of the realm, the Hidden Roads and later on the Shadow Paths, and I began traveling the realms. The fact that I was able to do so without using the Rainbow Bridge earned me the title of Sky-Treader." He smiled faintly. "It was during my travels that I met Angrboda. I was so young, still a teenager in the eyes of the immortals, even if I had already lived several of your lifetimes... Angrboda was very dear to me, my first love. Even though I could only spend a few days with her every few weeks, or at times months, we still cared deeply for each other. In the time we were together we had three children: Hela, Fenrir and Jörmungandr. Contrary to what your mythology would have you believe, my sons weren't born as beasts, but with humanoid forms and the ability to shape-shift, just as I did. They had a marked preference for certain forms though: in Fenrir's case a wolf, and in Jörmungandr's a huge sea-serpent." Loki smiled briefly at the memory before letting out a breath. "Eventually the love Angrboda and I shared cooled off. We did not hate each other, but no longer loved each other either. We were content with just being friends. The children stayed with her, though I visited often. I didn't fully trust taking them to Asgard, not after what had happened with Sleipnir, not when I knew that most Aesir would never understand my boys' preference for shifting into animals. However, the decision was taken out of my hands in the end, when Angrboda died in an accident, or at least that was the version I was given. There was a fire, responsible for the scars my Hela is well-known for; Asgardian soldiers happened to be around and heard my children calling for help, managing to save them, but not their mother."

"Sounds convenient..." Ward muttered.

"My children were brought to Asgard, and things were pretty much like I expected." Loki sighed sadly. "Hela had been so very beautiful... but the fire left her with awful scars. Her body would seize and she would weaken easily. Fenrir and Jörmungandr kept to their practice of shifting into a wolf and sea-serpent respectively. Until one day, for no apparent reason, the Allfather accused them all of dark magic. I don't remember much of what happened that day. I know there was a huge fight, Hela was fatally wounded trying to protect her brothers and I nearly died myself... not sure why I didn't actually." He shook his head, trying to push the pain aside. "When I recovered I was informed that my two sons had been imprisoned for 'crimes against Asgard' and my daughter had been exiled to the world of the dead for the same reason as well as for her own well-being, seeing as the wound she sustained during the fight would have killed her otherwise. I was kept under 'surveillance' for 'my own good' for a long time, until eventually I managed to slip away and find my children. It broke me, seeing what had been of them. To see my fierce, proud Fenrir held by unbreakable chains; my gentle, caring Jörmungandr magically trapped in the darkest, deepest recesses of your oceans; and my girl, my beautiful princess, condemned to forever live among the dead, never to walk among the living again... I pretty much lost all three of my children in one day, and didn't actually know why..."

Even with everything they had known of Loki before, everything they knew he'd done during the attack on New York, the fact that he'd killed Phil! None of the team were unaffected by the revelations of what had happened to him in the past. Skye in particular was beginning to get a pretty good idea of why her parents had chosen to give her up; if what had happened to her older siblings was anything to go by, even being bounced from foster home to foster home her life had been much better than it would have if Odin had found her...

"Do you know now?" Phil couldn't help but ask. "Why Odin did that, I mean?"

"He never told me, obviously." Loki shrugged blankly. "I only discovered it recently, when I took the throne from him actually... but we will get to that part of the story..."

Everyone nodded, understanding that some things just needed to be explained in a certain way, to be able to understand them correctly.

"I suppose it's my turn then..." Tawar announced as everyone's attention shifted to her. "I was born Tawariel, youngest daughter of Arbellason, Lord of the Great Forest. To give you all a little background. Alfheim, my world, which is inhabited by elves, is divided in several areas, each which has a main city and smaller settlements of a particular clan of elves: those of the Great Forest live in the very center of the realm; there are clans of smaller forests, others that live close to and owe their names to the Sea, rivers, lakes, mountains, you get the idea. I was the youngest child and only daughter of the Lord of the greatest clan, that of the Great Forest, or the Summer Forest, as it is also known."

"When you introduced yourself you used the name of another house..." May reminded her.

"I know, I will get to that in a moment." The she-elf assured her. "Elves grow faster than the Aesir, but once we reach our prime we shall not age until the day we're taken from the world, or choose to leave it of our own will. Still being fully grown in body doesn't mean we're fully grown in spirit. My father made the mistake of arranging a marriage for me, shortly after I had reached my majority. Voronwë is a good man, the Head Ambassador of our people. I know he would have been a good husband, respectful, kind, understanding of my constant desire for learning all the things I could, for being outside, exploring instead of staying in and learn to be a good wife. But I did not love him, and above all else I wanted to feel true love. Voronwë would have never broken off our betrothal, because even if he did not love me either, he wasn't interested in anyone, and breaking a betrothal with a princess was the worst kind of insult he could commit. So I broke the betrothal instead, in the only way I could. As the arrangement had been made by my father, I disavowed myself. I stopped being Princess Tawariel, and became just Tawar. After I left my old home I traveled for days, eventually reaching the ruins of what once had been a small clan, there was no one there anymore, but I was alright with that. It was the clan my mother had once been part of, before she died of grief after her last child was born dead: the baby would have been my little sister. It was the clan of the Midnight Blossom." She made a pause before signaling to Skye and adding. "That locket belonged to her. It has been in our family since the beginning of time, according to our history, passed on from mother to daughter... the engraving of knots at the front represents the way we're all tied together, we're all connected..."

Skye looked down at her locket, rubbing it with her thumb carefully. Learning that it held such history, history of her family... it was amazing...

Ever so slowly the story began to take form, and the team remained quiet, just listening.

"I met Loki when we were still children." Tawar continued. "During the only trip to Asgard I ever convinced my oldest brother: Arphenion, on taking me along with him. We only had a few days, but still managed to become good friends; we both enjoyed exploring and learning, and I loved seeing him experiment with his magic..." She smiled brightly. "When I couldn't find anyone to take me to Asgard afterwards I thought I would never see Loki again; and for many years I didn't. Then I disavowed myself, and it was an even bigger reason to think we would never find each other again. Except we did. He found me in my little cottage in the Shadowed Forest. He said he'd gone looking for me at my old home, learnt of what I'd done. It was Voronwë himself who told him where to find me." She reached to take her beloved's hand in hers with a smile. "We rekindled our friendship almost immediately and, through the years, that friendship slowly turned into something more. We knew we couldn't marry officially, Asgard would never accept it, would never accept me; I was considered a disgrace, a social pariah for my breaking of the betrothal with Voronwë and my separation from my Father's House. That didn't stop us, though. We went through an old elven ceremony, pronounced vows that called on the Higher Powers, we bound ourselves to each other."

Jemma actually sighed at that, it was beginning to sound like a love-story. Still, most of the team still remembered that something had to have gone wrong for things to have ended as they were in that moment, for Skye to have lived alone for so long...

"Children are rare among my people." Tawar continued. "They're a miracle to be cherished above everything and anything else, rare as it is. The day I learnt I was pregnant with Loki's child, I felt happiness like never before... I was being blessed with a child, we were being blessed. Even if I could never be publicly known as his wife, his match, even if both the child and I had to spend our lives in that small forest in a corner of Alfheim, I was convinced we would have a perfect life... Until the day I learnt Odin knew of me, and of her..." She swallowed the knot in her throat. "I knew well enough what had happened to all of Loki's children. Had known since beginning my relationship with my love. Neither of us truly understood why Odin seemed to be so against Loki's children, except that he believed they were a danger to him, for whatever the reason."

"He believed children were a danger to him?" Leo asked in disbelief.

"Maybe not the children, but who and what they would grow to be." May suggested.

"It still sounds insane." Jemma agreed with Fitz.

"Insane or not, it doesn't change his actions." Tawar pointed out. "With the horrible things he had done to Sleipnir, Hela, Fenrir and Jörmungandr, the mere possibility of anything like that, or worse, happening to my baby... It terrified me." She shook her head. "Like I believe I might have mentioned before, I am no spellweaver; however, all elves are born with one gift: foresight. It usually manifests in dreams, and depending how good we are with it, we find out a lot, or very little. Mine doesn't allow for much, but at least I realized that Odin knew about me, probably had for a while, and had learnt about my pregnancy. That had made him decide to move against me. I could have gone into hysterics right then, but knowing I didn't have a lot of time I chose to get to work right away. Even if a lot of my people considered me a pariah, I still had some contacts, friends, and at least one person who owed me a favor. Lady Thenidiel is the most powerful spellweaver among the elves, she owed me a favor. She arranged a time-delayed teleportation spell, which would take me to any realm I chose."

"Why not get away immediately?" Jemma asked, confused.

"She waited for me." Loki informed them. "I'd seen her when she was in her eighth week or so; then things happened in Asgard and I couldn't visit until she was near the end of her fifth month. She told me of her premonition and the steps she'd taken to ensure her safety and that of her... our child. I wanted nothing more than to go with her right then, but knew I couldn't. If I were to just disappear it would be too suspicious. I had to go back to Asgard, find out who knew about her and do everything I could to make sure she would never be found... as you might imagine, that didn't exactly go as planned..."

"I left the following day." Tawar continued. "Activated the teleportation spell and appeared right here, on Midgard, pretty close to a small rice-field, owned by an old midwife called Yue and her teen-aged daughter: Xiefa."

FitzSimmons gasped at that, they remembered what had happened to the people of a village in China, and Tawar's hysterics regarding someone named Xiefa...

"I spent the remaining months of my pregnancy with them." Tawar related. "Yue was such a nice, gentle woman. She never once questioned where I'd come from, why I wasn't with my husband, even though I'd mentioned him more than once, not even what I was doing there when I hadn't the first idea about their language. She just helped me. The kindest woman I've ever known... I pray she's in a better place now. Xiefa was such a happy, inquisitive child. She spoke English, so we could communicate. She was always asking things, wanting me to teach her everything I knew. Even when I told her all I knew were old stories and songs, she wanted to learn those too. I even managed to teach her some basic words and phrases in elvish..." She let out a breath. "The two helped me when I gave birth. Living in the middle of nowhere, there was really no one else to help. Still, they were all I needed." Her eyes fixed straight on Skye. "When they placed you in my arms... so small, and fragile, all pink and beautiful, with a tuft of light brown hair on your head, and big eyes, the same color as your father's. I loved you so much..."

Skye couldn't help herself, she let out a sob. She'd been trying so hard to keep her heart protected, to doubt anything the two immortals might say, not give into hope and begin to believe what they wanted her to... until then. Suddenly, seeing the expression on Tawar's face, the absolute feeling with which she'd said those five words... Skye just couldn't doubt it anymore... That woman was really her mother.

"I didn't name you at first." Tawar said, her eyes never straying from her grown daughter. "I did not want to do it without Loki, he deserved to have a say in your name. I knew something bad had to have happened, for him not to have joined me yet. I could only hope he was alright and would find us eventually, as he promised. Things got out of control the next day." Her voice broke slight and she had to force herself to speak past the knot in her throat. "36 hours... that's how long it had been since you were born... I remember it wasn't even dawn yet. And I sensed someone had arrived. Odin had sent someone from Asgard... for us. I was still too weak, having given birth with no medicines, no herbs... I couldn't run, but you had to get away... you had to. So I told Xiefa to take you and run. The closest village was a few hours away, and Xiefa was in good enough shape, I believed she could get there, she could save you. And she accepted. So I held you one last time, I named you, gave you my blessing... then I placed you in a fourteen-year-old's arms and said goodbye..."

"What did you name me?" Skye asked in a whisper.

"Menel." Tawar spoke in the same tone, as if afraid of breaking the moment. "Though Loki has taken to calling you Meneliel... it means sky..."

The sound that left the young woman's lips sounded like half-laugh, half-sob.

"What a coincidence!" Leo declared.

"No coincidence." Tawar shook her head. "Xiefa knew what the name meant. She realized the name Menel would have called too much unwanted attention, so she called you by its meaning instead, it was a good call." She signaled to the locket. "I placed that around your neck. If things had gone my way I would have given it to you when you came off-age, when you knew all about our family history, our traditions... but the moment I sensed an Asgardian approaching I knew things wouldn't go our way. So I left you the locket, and sent you away."

It took several seconds for Tawar to regain enough composure to continue with her story, but she knew she had to, even if she had shared all her memories with Loki, it wasn't right for anyone but her to tell that part of their story.

"Odin was actually caught off-guard by my actions." She finally spoke again. "Like I told you already, children are especially precious for elves. So much he never thought I would be capable of letting mine go. He obviously doesn't understand where a mother's priorities lie... no matter how much it might hurt me, your safety would always come first to me."

Both mother and daughter were openly crying by then, Skye's hands holding her locket tightly, while Tawar's held her match's.

"The one who came first was someone other than Odin, actually." Tawar clarified. "One of his Eihenjars, used to simply following orders, he cared not for the life of others. He killed Yue when she tried to stop him from manhandling me. When they couldn't find the baby anywhere in the cottage or the property Odin finally came. He tried to persuade me to tell him where I'd hidden my child, convinced as he was I couldn't have sent her far. He threatened with killing me, with killing my husband, if I didn't answer him. The bastard had the gall to say that he had nothing against me, he couldn't allow a monster's offspring to live, but I didn't have to die because of him, because of them. He honestly believed I would sacrifice my own daughter to save my life!" She shook her head in denial. "Eventually I made him see the truth. He was livid. He told me I was no one, that there was nothing I could do to keep the child from him. He would find her, and destroy her, more definitely than he'd done with Loki's other children... He tried to rip the information of my daughter's hiding place from my mind. I felt so much satisfaction when he found nothing... it's not like I even knew what direction the town was in! He told me he would find my babe anyway, that... that he would... would make her bleed, would destroy her in front me a... and my love. So we would know no one could go against Odin Allfather's wishes..."

Every single member of the team was horrified at hearing that. What would have happened to Skye... it was terrifying.

"I was sent, chained and gagged, to a cell in the dungeons." Tawar explained. "Every day he would go, ask me if I'd changed my mind and would tell him where to find my daughter." She snorted. "As if! He... he even tortured my husband in front of me a few times, it was one of his persuasion techniques..." A sob escaped her. "But I still didn't say a word."

"She was doing the right thing." Loki announced immediately, eyes fixed straight on Skye. "Your life was worth more than ours, a thousand times more..."

"One day he told me he'd found you, that he would go personally to retrieve you." Tawar said then. "I spent three days absolutely terrified. I could hardly sleep, and whenever I closed my eyes I thought I heard my baby screaming, and crying, calling to me and I was unable to answer." She shook her head. "When Odin finally visited again he was beyond furious. He was completely covered in blood, so much it made me sick. He took great pleasure in recounting everything he'd done, all the people he'd slaughtered. Only for you to slip from between his fingers. Odin is... was a Warrior above everything. Battle-lust took him over and he lost notion of things, I imagine that someone managed to get you away then..."

"A S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent." Phil informed her. "He was fatally wounded, what other agents believed to be a gun-shot wound, but managed to get away and hide with her under a bridge before fully bleeding out. Eventually other Agents found his body and the sleeping child in his arms, they were the ones who got her to the States."

"And Odin still went after them." May shook her head.

"What?" That was news to both Tawar and Loki.

"You did not know that?" Ward wasn't expecting that.

"I was sent to the Box after that day." Tawar explained. "It's a windowless, doorless cell, made of stones that absorb energy, it can only be entered and exited if you're holding the magical key, only the King of Asgard knows it's location, or that it even exists. Odin left me there. Eventually I lost so much energy I fell asleep. Didn't wake until a few weeks ago."

"I was made to forget." Loki added his part. "Forget everything about her. We'd been together for a century, and I didn't remember a thing. I was told I'd been exploring and got into a fight, and I wasn't enough of a Warrior... that I'd been left for dead and the Allfather's Eihenjar had found me, half-dead in the forest. Supposedly I got hit in the head hard enough a good deal of my memories were scrambled." He sighed. "I didn't believe most of it, but since I'd been so careful in my attempts to keep my relationship with Tawariel in secret there was no proof whatsoever of it, of her, anywhere in my chambers. So even though I knew I was being lied to, I didn't actually know what had really happened. It was like the day I lost my children all over again... except that I did not even remember losing something. I felt the hole in my heart, and knew not why..."

There were several shivers among the humans, as they tried imagining what it would feel like to go through something like that. It was more than they could even consider dealing with.

"Years passed." Loki got into the next part of the story. "I stayed close to Thor at Mother's insistence, she was worried something might happen to me if I kept going off on my own."

"Did she know about... about us?" Skye asked, curious.

"I don't know for sure, but I don't think so." He shook his head. "Mother... she would have never allowed Tawariel or you to be hurt... she would have loved you..." He let out a breath. "As you probably know already, the day came when Thor was to be crowned as King of Asgard. I thought it was insane. As much as I may care for him, Thor just wasn't ready to be King at the time. He was immature, wild, reckless, dangerous; he did not understand what ruling truly is supposed to be about; not about yourself, but about your people. And Odin did not care for correcting him! I have always said he is no father to me, I suppose he shouldn't even be considered a Father to Thor, he never chastised, never educated, never cared for the hard half of parenting..." He snarled quietly. "I knew Asgard would be in terrible danger if Thor took the throne as he was right then. So I sought to provoke him, force the Allfather to see just how ill-prepared his golden-son was." He sighed. "Things didn't exactly go the way I planned. Thor being exiled was never in the cards, much less ending with the throne myself! The last thing I needed was those kind of impossible expectations piled on me!"

"I thought you were supposed to be a great strategist?" May challenged.

"Excuse me if I was a bit distracted by the fact that my skin had just turned blue at the touch of a Frost Giant while we were in Jotunheim!" Loki snapped testily. "Like I said before, I lived most of my life believing myself the son of Odin and Frigga... it was then that I learnt the truth. I didn't take it well. Then again, I don't think anyone would take well finding out they're the very thing they've been taught to fear and hate their entire lives! That's how much Asgard, and Odin in particular hates the Jotun. Why Thor grew up claiming he would one day go to Jotunheim and slaughter all the Frost Giants!"

There were several gasps as the team was forced to consider one of their heroes committing that kind of genocide, planning it since being a child.

"When I confronted Odin on his lie he offered no answers." Loki forced himself to continue the story. "The most he said was that he'd had plans, but they no longer mattered. What kind of plans? Did he think he could educate me as an Asgardian and then send me to be the next King of Jotunheim, be a puppet King? I might have been Laufey's firstborn, but I do not think the Jotun would have been very agreeable to something like that. Or was I supposed to be some kind of ransom? Considering that Laufey left me in a temple to die in the aftermath of the worst war ever, it was quite obvious he didn't much care for me. I knew not what the plan was supposed to be, he fell into the Odinsleep before I could keep pressuring him. After that the revelation, added to the expectations placed on me as King of Asgard and everyone's distrust, just kept making things worse. I tried to make a treaty with Jotunheim, but Laufey was beyond reason. So I was forced to play dirty, I offered him the chance to murder Odin; though, unknown to him, it was all a ploy so I could assassinate him. I hoped that with him out of the way I would be able to talk peace with his people, maybe whoever became King once he was gone. Heimdall, and Thor's friends: Sif and the Warriors Three, had to choose that very moment to betray me. And things pretty much went to hell. Really, there was no way to win after that..."

"You went suicidal..." Phil's comment shocked everyone.

"How would you know that?" Loki demanded.

"Thor and I talked in the helicarrier." Phil shrugged slightly. "I didn't understand what made him care so much with everything you were doing, and had already done. He told me about your fight in the Rainbow Bridge. How he didn't realize it at the time, but in hindsight it was so obvious that you were provoking him to fight, to be angry, and yet you were holding back. With your magic you could have destroyed Thor in seconds if you had truly wanted to, instead you made him angry, fought him mostly physically, and pretty much let him throw you around."

There were several gasps, and Loki was completely tense; however, Phil wasn't done just then.

"He also remembered what happened at the end." Phil added.

"Don't..." Loki hissed.

Tawar closed her eyes, she didn't like it, but something inside told her the truth needed to come out, all of it, even... especially, the parts they hated most.

"You yelled at Odin, told him you could have done it, for him, for the family... you could have been the son he wanted... he said no." Phil continued. "And then... you didn't slip from the staff the Thor was holding so you wouldn't fall... you let go..."

The silence that followed that revelation was so thick several people felt like their were choking on it. Skye's eyes were wide in horror, she might have only known Loki, the true him, for less than two hours, but the mere thought of him trying to kill himself, it hurt a part of her she hadn't known could hurt... because she had parents, parents that loved her, who had done everything, sacrificed it all, to ensure her safety... and then they'd come so close to dying and she would have never gotten to meet them... She finally accepted fully the fact that they were, indeed, her parents; but that only seem to be bringing an even bigger and crazier roller-coaster of emotions.

"Of course, I did not die." Loki said mirthlessly. "Instead I fell for what seemed like forever, until I crash-landed on what might have been a planet once, or a moon or a star. Whichever the case, it was the hideaway of a long-forgotten race that had been corrupted beyond thought or reason by the Mad Titan, Thanos. When he saw me, saw my power, the fact that I too could survive in the abyss, he wanted to use me too. I tried my best to resist. While I might have had no love for Odin even then, I actually cared for Thor, still do, and I will always love Mother. So, when I refused to cooperate, Thanos tortured me. It went on for a long, awful time, until at some point, the tortures made something snap inside of me. And just like that, a century worth of memories slipped back into place. It was then that I truly fell into madness." His voice broke briefly. "To suddenly realize I'd lost a wife and a daughter, that they'd been lost for more than twenty years and I had not known. I hated Odin so much... I stopped fighting against what Thanos wanted."

His story suddenly explained so much. Like how insane he'd seemed throughout the whole thing in Stuttgart, the helicarrier and finally New York.

"I didn't care about anything anymore." Loki said with a shrug. "Far as I knew both Tawariel and our baby were dead. And even if they weren't, what chance had I of helping them? I decided I had a better chance to try and destroy Odin any way I could, and then eventually die... I certainly was not going to go back to pretending I didn't remember everything that bastard had done. If anyone in this universe is truly a monster, it is he." He let out a sigh. "I never actually wanted to destroy Midgard, it's not really my style. And it's not like it was the humans' fault. Also, if my smallest, brightest hope happened to be true, my daughter was somewhere in this realm, alive, hopefully living a good, free, happy life."

"That explains why you chose angering every would-be hero as your opening move in your conquering plan." Phil murmured in understanding. "I could never understand who went to such great effort to openly provoke those who could stop him, when they could have done everything in secret and not even be noticed until it was all said and done. You never intended to win."

"You had me all figured out at that moment." Loki admitted to Phil. "When you told me I wasn't going to win, that I lacked conviction. The only thing you didn't realize was that I never intended to win... not at all." He shook his head again. "When Thor took me to Asgard in chains, I was all ready for my final move. I would kill the Allfather and then I would die... But then, Mother was there. Odin made her leave, but her brief presence still shook me and I forgot to act. I was taken to a cell in the dungeons then. Each day my anger would grow, I began working on a new plan to murder Odin; but then Mother would visit, and it was as if her mere presence blew the anger away. I couldn't help it, couldn't help myself. It was a sick vice, yet I enjoyed her visits too much to tell her not to come back..." He let out a dark laugh. "Maybe if I had done it, if I had killed Odin, it would have been better."

"Why?" Skye asked, hurt. "You would have never known me."

"True, I would have regretted that." Loki admitted openly. "But maybe your mother would have been freed earlier, she would have found you, and you would have never been as close to death as you were yesterday. And maybe Mother would still be alive..."

"She's dead...?!" Skye was shocked.

"Yes." Loki let out a sigh. "Stabbed while protecting Jane Foster from Malekith and his followers a little over a month ago. Not that it's actually the Daughter of Foster's fault in any way... No. It's ours, Odin's, Thor's, and mine... I wasn't there... The Allfather had me rotting in a cell... and he and his son were elsewhere, playing with lesser fighters; and none of us were there to save her... none of us... she died all alone..."

Tawar embraced him tightly, whispering every comforting word she knew in both Elvish and English. It didn't help that much.

"I... I am sorry about L... your... Grandma..." With some effort Skye forced herself to accept her own connection to the deceased woman. "But if you had died, I wouldn't have known you and, well, I like being able to know you. Both of you. Even if the way we got here wasn't exactly the best, I'm still happy to have gotten this chance at all."

"We're delighted to get this chance too..." Tawar cut herself off before she could get too personal.

"Can you... can you call me that again?" Skye asked quietly. "Those words in your language, that you called me when I was a baby. What you called me in those dreams... I liked it..."

"Lirimaer amin..." Tawar whispered in a half-sob.

Skye smiled brightly.

"I still don't understand one thing." Ward stated, turning to Loki. "Why do S.H.I.E.L.D.'s records have you listed as deceased? There is even a note that you died in battle for Asgard."

"Thor..." Loki murmured, though he sounded touched rather than exasperated. "I told him quite clearly I hadn't done it for Asgard."

"What happened?" Skye was worried all over again.

It was strange for her. She was still getting used to caring about her team, worrying about them, and to suddenly have even more people, blood-family, to care for and worry about...

"After Mother... after she was gone, Thor went looking for me." Loki explained. "He claimed not to trust me anymore, yet he needed my help. He made me an offer he knew I wouldn't be able to refuse. A chance to take vengeance on those responsible for Mother's death. With some minor help from Heimdall and Thor's friends we got Jane Foster to Svartalfheim through the Hidden Roads; it was what they needed me for, as there was none other left who knew them like I did. The plan was to attract Malekith's attention away from Asgard. Also, we needed him to get the Aether from Jane Foster, as it was the only way she wouldn't end up dead from its power. We believed that if we managed to attack from close enough at the precise moment we would be able to destroy the Aether. It didn't exactly work our way..." He let out a breath. "We had a plan, the first part went just fine. It wasn't hard to pretend to betray him once again, and since the Kursed serving with Malekith had seen me in the dungeons, that supported my story that I wanted to destroy Asgard as much as they did. Jane Foster was freed of the power of the Aether, but even though Thor sent his best attack at it, it just wasn't enough. I think nothing would have been in that moment. I made sure the woman didn't get herself killed in the madness that followed, and then joined the melee. It had been so long since I'd been in such a battle, with my brother at my side rather than against me... I will admit it felt good. Then... I saw him, he was down, being pummeled by the Kursed. The monster was going to kill him, and I couldn't allow it. I might not be the best brother... and might deny even having such a connection with the oaf most of the time. But he is my brother, and I will protect him if I can..."

"You sacrificed yourself for him..." Jemma whispered.

"Not exactly in the way you're implying it, but it came down to that in the end, yes." Loki shrugged. "The longer version is that I stabbed the Kursed, it turned against me and ran the very blade that was still in him, through me as well. Now, contrary to what I imagine you're beginning to think right now. I did not fake my death, to escape going back to that cell... I did die." He undid several buttons from his tunic, opening it enough to show the pink scar on his chest. "I did die, and had that truly been my end, I don't think I would have regretted the way I went. I would have regretted never meeting you, Meneliel, never seeing Tawariel again, but not that. It was the first time, in many years, that I did something right..."

Yes, that was one thing he would never regret.

"How are you alive then?" Leo blurted out, backtracking the moment he felt the first glare. "Not that I think there's anything wrong with you being alive! I'm just... curious."

"I suppose some would say it pays being the father of the Queen of the dead..." Loki quipped, before turning more serious. "She told me I could come back, because there was something still tethering me to the world of the living. It was then that I learnt Tawariel was alive. I had no idea where she could be, but she was, indeed, alive. She was the one tethering me to life." He smiled at Skye. "Hel also told me you were alive as well. So I took the chance, and returned to life. I used my shape-shifting abilities to pass myself as an Eihenjar and get close enough to Odin to take him down. I even told him of my death... he didn't care. All he cared about was Thor. And the 'weapon'."

"Weapon?" Several members of the team asked at the same time.

"The Aether." Loki clarified. "He never cared for your Dr. Foster. In fact, he was all for sending her back to Midgard until he learnt she had absorbed the Aether... and then all he cared about was that power... he was the one who ordered for her to be kept inside those chambers, where Mother chose to put her life on the line to protect her... even afterwards, he kept her in the same room, surrounded by guards, not to protect Jane Foster herself, but to try and keep the Aether out of Malekith's hands... the Allfather has never cared for you humans, for any race really, he probably never will... He might try and show himself as a benevolent king, yet the truth is he's anything but. I can only imagine what he would have done if I'd ever chosen a mortal for my match... that choice is probably the one thing he'll never forgive his 'golden son' for... not that it changes anything in the end. Thor is way too stubborn for that. Which, I suppose, in a way, is Odin's fault as well, for never curving his tendencies..." The sorcerer actually chuckled. "Might have been interesting to see his sincere reaction when Thor announced his decision to abdicate the throne in favor of living out his life here in Midgard, with his Lady Jane..."

Yes, that was one sight he would have paid to see... it would have been hilarious! Though at the same time, he didn't want to think what the Allfather might have tried, against Jane Foster more than against Thor himself, to stop his heir from going through with his choice... it probably wouldn't have been good, not at all.

"So you killed Odin then?" May inquired, moving the conversation back to the original topic.

"No, I did not." Loki shook his head with some regret. "If I were to kill Odin, Thor would know, because the throne would demand his presence. Last time it was different, he was powerless, due to the Allfather's punishment, so I was the next choice. But with things as they are now, if Odin died, Thor would feel the throne calling to him. He would be able to see through the spell that makes everyone believe Odin is still on the throne, even though it's me. And he would most likely kill me himself." He shook his head. "To be perfectly honest. I did offer him the throne after he defeated Malekith. He chose to come back to Midgard and be with Jane Foster..." He took a quick look at his beloved. "Can't say I disagree with his choice, but someone had to stay in Asgard and handle things there. And he did say that from the two of us I was the one who truly understood the reality of ruling..."

"How does this connect to you?" Simmons asked Tawar.

"When he took down Odin, Loki decided to imprison him in the very cell where Odin had left me." Tawar explained. "I woke up in his personal chambers less than a month ago. It took me a week to even be able to stay awake longer than an hour at a time, another to get on my feet again; and it was less than three days ago that I began walking around."

"So, you aren't fully recovered, yet you... you came..." Skye was shocked speechless.

"I came the moment I heard you calling." Tawar finished for her.

Skye simply couldn't handle the emotions anymore; she jumped to her feet, pretty much stumbled around the coffee table in the middle of the lounge and then threw herself in her mother's arms.

"Mother... mom..." Was all she mumbled, time and again...

* * *

As you must have noticed, this chapter doesn't actually have any real changes. They weren't needed. The new stuff comes from the next chapter on (I'm almost completely scrapping the original ending, as it no longer fits... no since TAHITI... and especially the whole mess CA2 left us with).

Also, I've just posted a new set of wallpapers inspired by the Menel series, as always, you can find them in my DA account.

Regarding Ward... which I know at least a few people must be wondering about, I have plans... and that's all I'm saying at this point. Also, I won't go into that in this fic but in the sequel. Lokidottir won't go beyond Yes Men (you'll see why eventually). But we will be getting into Hydra and the whole mess in good time.


	4. Plans and Choices

The new story begins here... with my own version of TAHITI (with less Tahiti and more...something else).

I told at least two people, explicitly, that this wouldn't be happening yet... but I plan, my muse orders and then I write. So, here it is! Enjoy(and please don't kill me).

* * *

**Chapter 4. Plans and Choices**

No one was sure exactly how long the little family spent like that. Skye ended curled up between Loki and Tawar, both embracing her tightly. Slowly the team began drifting away, giving the three their space, though there was no doubt they all would be back in seconds if Skye, or anyone were to call on them.

The moment was eventually interrupted by May's voice on the speakers:

"We're currently flying above New York, have received a tagged message from HQs ordering us to prepare to land as soon as the tarmac is cleared, which means fifteen to thirty minutes. Should be stepping off the bus in the next hour."

Everyone could read between the lines, the time was coming to an end.

As if to confirm when Skye raised her head she could see Phil standing behind one of the sofas once again.

"Guess the time has come..." Loki murmured, mostly to himself, before turning to Phil. "I suppose you will be the one to take me in."

"What?!" Skye practically shrieked. "No! AC!"

Tawar just held her tightly, she didn't like it either, but there was nothing she could do to change things, not without affecting her daughter, and her friends...

"It's alright, my dear." Loki caressed Skye's face softly, trying to make her feel all the love he didn't imagine he would ever have the time to truly express. "The Son of Coul has a duty to fulfill. A duty to his organization and his country..."

"But it's not right!" Skye insisted. "You... they will see you as a war criminal, they will kill you... they won't understand..."

"The fact that you understand, brings me happiness like you cannot imagine..." Loki whispered, kissing Skye's brow. "It will be alright, my child. I got to meet you, got to see you all grown up, see you smile... what else could I ask of the universe? Besides, as much as you might believe you understand. In the end, I'm not a good man, and justice must be served..."

"You cannot take him, take them, AC, please!" Skye insisted.

She knew what most would say, that she had to trust the system. After the mess with Miles she'd promised them her loyalty, to the team and to S.H.I.E.L.D., but her father... just a couple of hours before she might not have a kind word to say about Loki, especially not after New York, and after what had happened to Phil but after everything she'd heard that morning, and he was her father... Somehow everything and anything else took second place after that.

"I am not." Phil's answer surprised everyone present, possibly even himself. "In fact, I was going to suggest you get off the Bus before we land... and that your daughter might want to work her magic in the cameras in here before that time as well... just in case."

"What?!" None of them knew what to say.

Phil didn't say anything else, just turned to leave.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing Phil?" Melinda asked him quietly around the corner.

"What do you suppose I am doing Melinda?" Phil inquired in turn.

"Letting a dangerous inter-dimensional criminal go." Melinda said as if it were obvious.

"I see it as giving a man who's already lost too much, a second chance." Phil told her quietly and, after hesitating for a second or two, added: "I also see it as us gaining a possible ally if things ever get as bad around here as I fear they might."

"You're preparing allegiances outside of S.H.I.E.L.D..." Melinda was shocked, she knew Phil was losing faith in the system, but could have never imagined just how bad it'd gotten already.

"I am just taking precautions." He insisted.

He would never say it, but since he'd discovered how far S.H.I.E.L.D. had been willing to go, both with the dramatic way in which Fury had presented his death to the Avengers, his being brought back to life, and the whole Tahiti illusion, Phil's trust in both Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. as a whole had lessened. He knew May suspected at least some of it, but not all. The only one who knew most of it was Skye... he trusted her so much it surprised even him; but then again, Skye wasn't really S.H.I.E.L.D., not because she couldn't be, but because in a way Phil had been holding her back; a part of him couldn't help but think she was safer outside of the system than inside it, regardless of all he might say about trusting the system, he himself was losing his trust and faith in it, in them.

Then there was the Clairvoyant... their 'enemy' knew too much of their movements (both his team and the organization as a whole) and the workings of S.H.I.E.L.D., including the neuro-toxin in that grenade they'd used in Italy. So either they had a mole, a traitor (or even more than one), or something much more perverse and dangerous was afoot... In the end, having someone like Loki as a possible ally in case of an emergency might not go amiss. And that was without considering what Skye might be capable of when whatever abilities she might have inherited from her father began to truly surface...

Phil and May were still in the process of leaving when Loki abruptly appeared right in front of them; the shock was great enough the two agents couldn't help but reach for guns they didn't have on them. They didn't need them, thankfully.

"Is it true that the thrice-damned bastard who shot my daughter is in this craft right now?" The half-crazed-looking man hissed right then.

May got on guard instantly, even without a weapon she could still fight, and she knew it would turn to that the moment Loki confirmed what he already knew. Phil just cocked his head to a side, wondering where exactly the sorcerer had gotten that information.

As if on cue Tawar and Skye turned a corner, reaching them, while FitzSimmons waited behind, Leo looking especially nervous. It was suddenly quite obvious who was responsible for Loki finding out about Quinn being on the Bus... even if it was most likely an accident.

"Adar!/ Serrure!" The two first women called in unison.

"It's true, isn't it?" Loki insisted. "The bastard is here."

Skye just rolled her eyes at the tension in everyone before moving to stand right in front of her father, placing both hands on his chest in a stopping motion.

"Yes, Ian Quinn is on board..." She pressed harder the moment he threatened to even move. "But you cannot kill him!"

"I would be all for that." Ward announced from the opposite end of the hallway.

"Ward!" Several voices called in various stages of shock and disbelief.

"What?!" Ward shrugged carelessly. "The bastard deserves to die for what he did to Skye."

"He deserves much worse than that." May mumbled, at least half agreeing with the others. "But that is not up to us."

"Agent May is right." Skye held onto what she could to try and convince her father to think things twice. "As much as you... as we may all hate Quinn, we cannot kill him, none of us." She shot a look at her S.O. for emphasis. "S.H.I.E.L.D. will never let it pass..." She remembered something right then and her eyes narrowed almost without her noticing. "If he was telling the truth back in that cellar, and someone ordered him to shoot me... if it was the Clairvoyant..."

"He might know who the Clairvoyant is." Phil finished, catching up to her line of thought. "We need to interrogate Quinn right away... before we get to HQs even."

"It's likely he will be interrogated by the best once we turn him in..." May offered. "He will most likely be taken to the Fridge and dealt with there."

More than likely, it was the only possibility, really. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been after Quinn for too long not to interrogate him; and if he was really connected to the Clairvoyant and to Centipede, that only made interrogation all the more necessary.

"And do you really think they will tell us what they find out after they've interrogated him?" Phil asked her, dead serious. "These are things we need to know."

"So I guess that means we'll be interrogating Quinn ourselves?" Ward guessed, a glint of what looked almost like anticipation in the corner of his eyes.

"If you do this, we must be done by the time we land." May declared. "And HQ is really not going to like it."

"I may be able to help with that." Loki offered suddenly.

"How do we know you won't just kill him?" May asked, brow arched.

"His knowledge is too important, at least for the time being." Loki rolled his eyes but answered her anyway. "If your organization can handle him, I shall not interfere. Also, something tells me my daughter wouldn't be very happy with me if I tried to kill him; regardless of how much the piece of scum might deserve him, on the other hand, death might be too easy..." He seemed to be making plans mentally, probably on ways he might be able to torture Quinn from a distance. "However, if he, for whatever the reason, becomes a risk to my child again later on..."

No one needed him to finish the sentence, it was quite obvious. And at least with Loki's help they were sure they would be able to find out everything they needed from Quinn before turning him in to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s HQ...

**xXx**

Almost an exact hour to the minute later the hangar bay door of the Bus opened slowly. A team of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, lead by Level 8: John Garrett and his apprentice: Antoine Triplett, stood there, waiting for the team about to disembark.

"Garrett?" Phil couldn't fully hide his surprise at the person who received them. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Well, as opposed to the level 8 jackass I'm staring at, I still follow orders." Garrett declared in a drawl, though his expression completely contradicted his words.

"You're the worst at following orders." Phil deadpanned.

Truly, he had enough anecdotes, both personal and from others, to back that claim.

"Maybe..." The man shrugged, obviously not caring much about that. "But I like this one. You are to immediately turn Ian Quinn over for transport to the fridge."

Really, it wasn't anything they hadn't been expecting already, especially since they'd 'failed' (willfully ignored the order) to comply while back in Zurich.

There were some pleasantries exchanged, as Garrett introduced his protege, making mention of how he'd begun training the young man after Ward left him to join Phil's team. There wasn't much interest from anyone from the Bus, focused as they were on the parts they had to play.

"Go secure the prisoner." Phil ordered May and Ward before turning back to Garrett, dropping the pleasantries completely. "Why are you really here, Garrett?"

The man didn't answer, just quietly watching Phil, and the two young people observing their exchange from the top of the ramp.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. could have sent any security team to collect Quinn." Phil insisted. "Why you?" It took a second or two, but Phil eventually realized it. "You've been chasing him, too!"

"Since Malta." Garrett nodded. "Then two days ago, your little Italian job cost my team weeks of work." He was obviously put out by the whole thing.

"You can't have him, not yet." Phil began his script.

He knew it was useless, but like everyone else in the plane... except maybe Quinn, they all had their parts to play.

"This isn't a request." Garrett shook his head in denial, just as expected.

"Quinn shot one of my agents." Phil revealed, allowing some emotion to color his words.

"Quinn actually pulled the trigger?" That seemed to truly throw Garrett.

"Skye infiltrated his compound in Malta, weeks ago, one of her first missions, before anyone became aware of her changed allegiances so-to-speak." Phil elaborated. "When Quinn saw her yesterday, seems he took it personally."

"I never took him for a triggerman." The other man still couldn't fully believe what Phil was telling him. "He pays others for that. I've lost three of my own chasing him."

"Then you understand why I can't give him to you..." Phil murmured.

"Where is she?" Garrett asked abruptly. "Because if she was shot there is no way she's the little lady standing up the ramp, and I know you weren't talking about May..."

Phil's whole body tensed up visibly, a shadow falling in his eyes before he closed them briefly. As he opened them again Garrett could see that something had changed, it was as if he'd hidden some part of him behind impenetrable doors, and the moment the next words came out from his oldest friend's mouth, John Garrett understood why...

"Skye passed away an hour ago..." He murmured.

John didn't even have to ask Phil to confirm it, the all-too-audible sob from the young woman at the top of the ramp, broken off as she buried her face in her partner's chest, hiding from prying eyes, was enough confirmation for the experienced agent.

As if on cue May and Ward reappeared right then, dragging between them an extremely pale Ian Quinn, his lip was split, and he looked quite different from when the team had first taken him in, when he'd so gleefully taunted Phil and everyone else with his own actions.

"She's dead...?" He asked, so quietly some might think he was scared.

"That's what he said." Ward stated coldly, pushing the prisoner harshly to keep moving.

"You cannot be that surprised." May added in a similar freezing tone. "You're the one who put two bullets in Skye's stomach!"

"You cannot say you never meant for her to die..." Ward hissed.

"I didn't..." Quinn began, looking somehow very lost.

"You shot her!" Jemma screeched, still from her boyfriend's arms.

"I shot her because that's what the Clairvoyant told me to do!" Quinn retorted.

"The Clairvoyant?" Garrett interrupted, confused.

"Supposedly a psychic." May clarified.

"Psychics don't exist." Triplett blurted out, looking in surprise at the team before him. "You cannot tell me you believe it..."

The team shrugged, after what they had seen... Tawar had told them about the elven foresight, how it had allowed her to see Odin coming after her, allowed to run while pregnant; and there was also the psychic connection that had warned her about what was happening to Skye... of course, they couldn't explain any of it to Garrett or Triplett.

"What I find surprising is how a big-shot billionaire could fall for this psychic mumbo jumbo." Garrett commented doubtfully, looking at Quinn.

"Oh, I doubted it at the beginning," Quinn admitted with a shrug. "But then I realized it would be mutually beneficial."

"He must have something pretty terrible on you." The agent receiving him insisted. "Shooting an unarmed girl?"

"Let's just say I learned the hard way that obeying was in my best interest." Quinn admitted with some reticence.

"Yet... here you are." Garrett practically smirked in satisfaction at that.

Ian Quinn just couldn't take his defeat lying down, he just had to try and get the best out of their captors, even bound as he was.

"Let me assure you it wasn't luck that led me to your partner's black sedan in Berlin, or that he'd open the door for a redhead, or those two agents in Morocco..." He taunted. "Do you think it was just a roll of the dice that my people found them in that Riad?" His smirk widened. "No, it was the Clairvoyant..."

Everyone in the team couldn't help but react to those words, shocked by the gall Quinn had at revealing just how many more agents he had gotten killed... yet, somehow, Garrett managed not to react at all, maybe because it was no secret to him, a good number of those agents had been teamed with him at the time of their deaths after all...

"Your Clairvoyant say anything about me knocking your teeth in?" Garrett quipped with a predatory smile as he approached the man.

"The Clairvoyant sees everything..." Quinn insisted, managing to keep from flinching at Garrett's tone and posture before turning to signal in Phil's direction. "... except what happened to him."

There was no surprise in Phil's expression when he heard that, though as far as everyone-not-in-the-team present knew, it could have simply been part of being a good Agent...

"This is still about me." Phil murmured eventually.

"Wait. You're gonna need to rewind the tape, Phil." His friend told him, looking at least a bit confused by the change in the conversation.

"You heard about my near-death before the battle of New York?" Phil didn't actually wait for an answer before continuing. "There's more to it than that. I thought I was gone for seconds... turns out it was days..."

"That's impossible." The other senior Agent shook his head.

"Which is why the Clairvoyant will do anything to know how it happened." Quinn added somewhat helpfully.

"Even order you to shoot Skye." Garrett nodded in understanding.

For a second or two, nothing was said, until yet something else seemed to dawn on him:

"Wait." His eyes stared straight at his oldest friend as he spoke. "You don't know what S.H.I.E.L.D. did to save you..."

"No." Phil admitted with a grunt.

"So shooting the girl forces you to figure it all out." Garrett understood.

"So the Clairvoyant can finally see." Phil nodded.

"Or you let the girl die..." Garrett finished.

"Except that Skye is already dead..." Phil added in an almost emotionless tone.

Almost everyone would see it as him just stating the facts, but Garrett had been his friend from a long time, he could see how hard Phil was fighting to keep a reign on his emotions.

"So were you..." He stated, as if trying to give his friend hope.

"No!" Jemma cried out, horrified, before hiding yet again in Leo's jacket.

The cry surprised everyone present.

"No?" Triplet voiced the question in most minds. "She's not dead."

"Skye..." It seemed like Ward couldn't even bring himself to finish the sentence.

"She's very much dead, Agent Triplett." May finished for her teammate.

"And you won't even try to save her?" Triplett seemed horrified.

"If you knew what I went through when they did that for me..." Phil shook his head, closing his eyes tightly, as if to hold back tears. "I won't make Skye go through that kind of hell. None of us will. No matter how much I... we might wish things were differently, how much we might all wish she were still with us... we are not putting her through that. Never." He turned to stare at Quinn. "So the Clairvoyant's plan has failed. Skye is dead, and we're not bringing her back."

"No!" Quinn shouted his denial. "It's not possible! That's not how it was supposed to go! The Clairvoyant said you would act! That you would never let her die!"

"I would have done anything... anything at all, to keep her alive, but I will not drag her through hell to bring her back to life." Phil clarified in his coldest tone yet.

"So that means this... Clairvoyant, failed?" Garrett wanted to confirm.

"Yes." Everyone in the team stated at the same time, as if trying to gain some measure of comfort or satisfaction from that fact.

"Why were you refusing to release him into our custody then, if nothing can be done to save your agent's life?" Triplett inquired, confused.

"I wanted to know why he'd done it." Phil stated, once again with no emotion. "We all wanted to know what exactly Skye died for..."

"It wasn't worth it..." Ward muttered darkly.

"It hardly ever is." May pointed out. "But this is the life we chose. It is the life Skye chose, both when she joined our team, and when she went into Quinn's villa..."

"She should have never gone in alone!" Ward practically roared his fury.

"Well, we have the answer we were looking for even if, in the end, it doesn't really change anything." Phil stated. "We will leave now..."

"Phil, the girl..." It seemed like even Garret, with all his charm, had no idea how to ask the question on his mind. "What will you do?"

"A few weeks ago, another of my team almost died." Phil commented in what seemed like a non-sequitur. "Afterwards they all talked about what they would like if they were to die... it's not like any of us were ignorant of the risks our job carried..."

"She will be cremated, and the ashes released in the Pacific Ocean." May finished when it seemed like Phil wouldn't be able to say it. "Those were her wishes."

"And the family?" Triplett asked, wondering why the team was the one handling such things.

"She was an orphan." Ward revealed.

"No, she wasn't." Phil shook his head in denial. "We're her family..."

Everyone else in the team nodded in confirmation to that.

May and Ward passed Quinn to the team of Agents standing behind Garrett and Triplett, and then everyone from the Bus-team turned to go back inside it. Other Agents had been refueling it, and they would be back on the air soon...

"Hey Phil!" Garrett called unexpectedly.

Phil stopped halfway up the ramp, looking slightly over his shoulder to show his attention without actually turning around.

"If you ever need any help..." Garrett declared, seemingly not sure how to express himself.

Phil shook his head, not even contemplating it.

"Just don't let the bastard escape." May declared, following after the others.

There was some kind of finality, as the hangar bay door closed behind the Bus-team, though most of the Agents currently on the tarmac didn't dwell much on it; like Phil had said, it's not like they didn't know the dangers of their jobs, and since none of them had ever met Skye, her death was just another name to be added to the list of those who'd fallen on the line of duty, she meant next to nothing to them. Or at least to most of them. Neither of the had any way of knowing that there was at least one person standing there who may have never met Skye, but her death still affected him, affected his plans... while it wasn't the end of the world, it was certainly a setback he hadn't been expecting. It seemed some of his plans would have to be changed...

Inside, the Bus was completely sealed once again, the team remained completely silent until they made it to the sitting room, where they finally let out a breath.

"So, everything go well, then?" A voice inquired.

Phil raised his head then, the shadows completely gone from his eyes, as if they'd never been there in the first place, as he looked at the young, beautiful brunette with eyes like stormy skies, who was looking at him with obvious anticipation.

"Everything went just according to plan." May informed those who'd been waiting for them.

The two others in the sitting room nodded, the older woman especially let out a breath, she'd been honestly worried about the team, her daughter's team, as they 'played their parts' before the other agents, especially when they'd learnt that at least Phil and Ward knew one of them.

"Even Jemma did her part beautifully." Ward added, before making his tone teasing. "Of course, most of that meant her burrowing her face in Fitz's chest..."

There was laughter all around, except for FitzSimmons, who could only blush; even if it had become common knowledge on the bus that they were together and Phil had assured them that he didn't care much about enforcing the non-fraternization rules as long as their relationship didn't mess with their duties... it was still so new to them, to have others know that there was more to their partnership than just work.

"The Bus is fully fueled, wheels up in five." May announced to everyone before making her way to the cockpit.

"Did everything really go well, AC?" The youngest woman insisted, placing a hand on his arm. "You look... off."

"Just fine Skye." Phil smiled at her, choosing not to comment on her touch. "No need to worry. As far as S.H.I.E.L.D., and Ian Quinn, is concerned, you're dead now. You and your parents can leave as soon as we're high enough to be completely off-radar again, just as planned."

There was no way he could explain to her the things that had run through his mind as he 'played his part' a few minuted before. Garrett knew him too well to buy the emotionless act completely, so he'd needed to show some real feeling, and the only way had been to force himself to believe, however briefly, that Skye was really gone. It was a pain such as he'd never felt before, one he hoped never to have to go through for real... he might not survive it.

The plan... yes, it had all been part of the plan. An hour earlier Loki, Tawar, May and Phil had gone into the cell where Ian Quinn was being kept and interrogated him.

_With the help of Loki's magic and Tawar's gifts they were able to see exactly what happened in that villa in Italy. They saw a thoroughly changed Mike Peterson in the hyperbaric chamber before being woken up, the device created by Cybertech attached to him to replace the leg he'd lost. They saw when Skye's gun was taken, when she tried and failed to reason with Mike, when Quinn tried and failed to get Mike to shoot her... and when Quinn himself shot her twice, in the stomach, with no regret whatsoever... _

_Tawar and May barely managed to react in time to stop Loki from slitting Ian's throat with the blade that he conjured automatically the moment they all saw (in their minds) Skye laying against that cellar wall, after having painfully pulled her bleeding form across the floor, unable to truly call for help, clutching her locket and calling for her mother with what seemed like her last breath... the mix of shock, horror and terror the scene had caused was almost enough to send him into a fit like he hadn't felt since Thanos's torture returned him the memories Odin had previously blocked of his match and youngest child. _

_A second later Quinn was on the ground, nose broken and two black eyes, courtesy of a rather vicious punch from Phil. The two women had been so focused on Loki being a threat, they never expected Phil's reaction, never thought to stop him. _

_It took a while for all of them to calm down enough to continue, but once they did, the men focused on interrogating Quinn. They learnt about the Claivoyant's orders, and the reasons behind them. Thanks to Loki's intervention such measures weren't necessary, but how could they hope to explain that without revealing the help they'd received? _

"_If there's no other way..." Loki offered quietly. _

"_No." Phil shook his head before the sorcerer could even finish. "Even if it weren't for the fact that Skye was right when she said it wasn't right... your interference in this situation, and your connection with Skye in particular, will put her in serious danger." _

"_What other option is there?" May asked, having no idea. _

_Before any of them could say anything, Phil's cell rang. Knowing it had to be someone on the plan, he took it immediately. It wasn't actually a call, but a message, from Skye herself. _

_+I have an idea.+ _

So she had 'died', that was the plan. While it was true that whatever was used to save Phil could have saved her as well, even under such circumstances, it was a way to explain why nothing would be done. Skye also was confident enough in her hacking abilities to be sure she could make herself a new life, and get herself back with her 'chosen family'.

The plan also gave her the chance to spend some time with her parents. They'd planned on her being absent for a month or so, giving her a chance to see Asgard, learn about her parents and whatever powers she might have due to her mixed heritage. Loki had also warned her that while Tawar's actions just hours after her birth had sealed a lot of that heritage, her recent near-death experience had broken that seal. It had begun with her eyes, but it wouldn't stop there, her powers would begin to manifest in the next few days, so it was a good idea of her to be far away from S.H.I.E.L.D. when that happened. After all, it had been one thing to keep her origins a secret from the organization (especially seeing a she was technically a part of it) after finally finding out; it was an entirely different matter to hide the appearance of gifts, particularly since she hadn't the slightest idea what those gifts would be exactly.

The first part of the plan had just taken place. It had the team handing Quinn over to S.H.I.E.L.D. and at some point announcing Skye's death. Loki had made sure to confound Quinn's mind just enough for him not to remember the interrogation. It was the reason why they had arranged for the 'impromptu interrogation on the tarmac; that way if Quinn ever remembered saying anything, he would think it had been said on the tarmac, and not while interrogated on the bus.

The unexpected interest from Agent Garrett would make it necessary for the team to actually travel to the west coast with an urn of ashes they would pretend were Skye's so they could be scattered in the beach. Still, while a complication, it was a small one, and certainly one they'd been prepared for.

And there they stood, Skye nodding with the slightest hesitation at what Phil had just said, she could sense that her AC was keeping something from her, though she could also somehow sense it wasn't anything against her. In the end she decided to trust him, trust that if something was truly wrong he would tell her.

The group split to their assigned spots when May's voice came through the speakers to announce they were taking off. And five minutes later they were free to move around once again as they reached their usual altitude and stabilized.

"I guess it's time for us to take our leave..." Tawar commented quietly right then.

"We must, before someone in Asgard notices 'Odin' missing... the last thing we need is for someone to suspect things aren't as they should..." Loki added grimly.

Skye nodded silently, she knew her parents, her father especially, had taken great risks answering her (unknowing) call for her so abruptly. It was thanks to their prompt response that she'd been saved, but they had return as soon as possible, make sure there was no reason to suspect things weren't as they were supposed to be.

Right then the rest of the team joined in the room, each taking a turn to say their goodbyes to Skye, and even to her parents, thanking them for their visit and their help.

"I'm gonna miss you!" Jemma was the most emotional. "You must come back soon..." She stopped pulling back from the embrace to stare straight into Skye's changed eyes. "Because you are coming back, right?!"

"Yes Jemma, I'm coming back, soon, I promise." Skye reassured her with a smile. "Skye might be dead as far as the world is concerned... but it's not like it would be the first time I... reinvent myself, so-to-speak..."

It was true, the team might not know it; but then again, there was quite a bit about her past they did not know... some things they might find out about sooner or later, like her schooling, and certain... rather particular individuals she'd met at certain points in her past, but the time for that hadn't come just yet.

"And how exactly are you planning on getting into S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Ward inquired, an almost challenging tone in his expression.

"Oh, you'll see..." She teased. "I have it all planned! It'll be a surprise."

Yes, she had it all planned. In fact, the first part of her plan had been already sent in motion, with help of the Bus's computers and her prodigious hacking; she'd been extra careful to make sure no one would be able to track her, and even if somehow they were to... Skye was officially dead, and they would have no reason to suspect her new identity...

In the end the goodbyes took longer than she'd been expecting, but it was just that there was a part of her that didn't want to be saying goodbye... she knew it was a good idea, beyond that it was pretty much necessary, but that didn't make it any easier. It wasn't that she didn't want to spend that following month with her parents, because she certainly did, but she just hated that to be able to spend time with one family meant having to be apart from the other. It was almost ironic, she though, for twenty-four years she'd had no one, no real family... then in a matter of weeks she'd found not just one family, but two, and she couldn't have both at the same time... Maybe it was part of the balance, maybe if she had too much good that would be attracting too much bad. She did not know... though it scared her. Even with her recent near-death experience, she'd never had so many good things happen to her in such a short time (and nothing could be better than having family that loved her); so much was going so well... she was afraid that something bad might happen, to balance out the good...

She wasn't sure when it happened or how, but at the end of her goodbyes Skye found herself facing none other than Phil, her AC, again; and not only that, but they were alone. Her mother had actually told her they would be waiting by the medpod (as it was easier to leave as little a trace as possible of their inter-dimensional travels if they left from the spot where they'd arrived, physically if not exactly geographically). The rest of the team had left to do their own thing (though not before Jemma got Skye to promise, again, to return when the month was up), it was as if they knew that both Skye and Phil wanted that farewell to be private... even if they didn't say so themselves, even if probably they didn't even know it.

For almost a full minute not a word was said. They both knew goodbyes needed to be said, or at least 'see you laters' as Leo had insisted, as they couldn't be actual goodbyes since she was returning to them in just one month... still, they needed to be said, and she needed to join her parents so they could make the journey to Asgard together... yet, for some reason, neither of them was exactly willing to say the words.

Eventually Skye grew so nervous she felt like she couldn't face him any longer, so instead she turned her back to him, facing instead the windows, her gaze fixed on the ever-changing skies, the same her own orbs seemed to have begun to reflect since her awakening after being healed... Phil couldn't find the words to say it, but he thought her eyes were dazzling...

"Skye/Phil..."

When they finally found the will to speak they did so at the same time, only to go silent again as they each waited for the other to continue. Even more seconds of tense silence passed by until, right as Phil opened his mouth to say something, he heard her speak:

"Life is so short... painfully so." She murmured, back still to him, as if talking to herself more than to him. "We could die today, tomorrow, any day..."

"That sounds a tad morbid." He commented, trying to lighten the mood.

"It's no less real, though." She replied softly, ignoring his attempt at humor, placing a hand on the window before her. "I don't want to die..."

"You're alive." He reminded her, wishing it were dark enough to see her reflection in the glass-pane. "You had a near-death experience, but you survived."

"I am alive." She agreed, though still sounding quite gloom. "But if this experience has taught me anything, it is that I might not be so lucky the next time. We might not be so lucky..."

"Skye..." He really didn't like to hear her focus so much on the negative.

He knew she was right, of course she did. He could still remember quite vividly the moment he'd stepped into that cellar, had seen her sitting almost lifeless against the wall, so much of her blood paiting the stone floor... it was a memory he was unlikely to forget any time soon, one that was likely to torture him for the rest of his life. And yet she was there, before him, alive... he would rather focus on that.

"It's the truth." She went on. "This whole thing has made me all the more aware of the risks of this life I've chosen..."

"Do you regret the choice?" He asked, almost hesitantly.

He couldn't help but cringe at the possibility, after all, hadn't it been him who had dragged her into S.H.I.E.L.D. and all its dangers? He'd promised her first-row seat to the strangest-show-on-Earth... yet none of them had ever stopped to consider the very-real-risks, even after what had happened to him right before the battle in New York, the possibility of her ever being in such danger never even crossed his mind! He'd been careless and perhaps naïve.

"Never!" She spun around sharply to face him as she said that. "However, the experience has made me decide something. Life is painfully short..."

"So you've said..." He murmured, waiting.

He took advantage of the chance to study her expressions, trying to divine what might be truly going through her mind, but he couldn't read her. For the first time since their rather intense conversation in his office, back when he'd thought her a traitor and come so close to giving up on her; for the first time since that day he couldn't read her...

"Don't worry, I'm not going paranoid or becoming obsessed, terrified of my own death, or anything like that." She assured him, with the barest hint of a smile. "No, what I've decided is something else entirely."

"Will you tell me?"

"I've decided that, whatever may happen, I don't want to ever have any regrets. There are no guarantees in life, especially not in our line of work. I will stop holding back. Come what may, I wanna have no regrets..."

"Do you have any now?"

"Well... there's actually something I've been dreaming of doing but I hadn't dared... until now."

With one single step she was standing right against him, her body flushed against him in ways he didn't allow himself to focus on, on risk of 'reacting'... however, before he could say anything, question her intentions, they became clear enough, as she kissed him full on the mouth.

* * *

Next Chapter: Skye in Asgard, the rest of the team takes a few weeks off, and a little gift from a certain someone makes Phil decide it's time to begin mending fences with someone he left behind a while ago...


	5. Obedience and Loyalty

I know that in the last chapter I implied Skye would be gone for a month but I've decided to change it and make it so she'll be gone for three instead, to make it more plausible that she learnt all the things I need her to, in that time.

There are some Avenger-cameos in this chapter... nothing too serious yet, mostly setting up for what's to come; though I do wonder if I shouldn't move this to the crossover section...

* * *

**Chapter 5. Obedience and Loyalty**

It had been two weeks since Skye's departure/death, the Bus was 'parked' and ready for a group of workers to begin with the maintenance, while the remaining members of the teams got their bags ready. They each had their own plans for the holiday season. Fitz-Simmons in fact were no longer on board, as Agent May had agreed to drop them in Britain before getting the bus to Washington. Ward had announced he had no interest in visiting his family, but instead planned on going camping in an old place he knew. May had some family. The only one with no actual plans was Phil; both FitzSimmons and May had invited him to join them and their families, but he refused, not wanting to intrude. Truth is he'd been acting quite odd since Skye's leaving, but no one dared asking what was wrong exactly. They all missed the brunette hacker, without a doubt, but it was as if, somehow, her absence hurt Phil more...

Phil had finished packing and was working on dusting his collection of 'old stuff' as Skye had called it once, before leaving. He was almost done when he noticed something: hidden inside the half-opened trunks of a perfect replica of Lola was a very small case with an micro-SD card, It also had a piece of tape with "top secret" scrawled in what Phil instantly recognized as Skye's rushed hand-writing.

After closing and locking his door to ensure some privacy Phil slid the card into his personal tablet (not the one S.H.I.E.L.D. issued, but one for personal use, and which Skye had reinforced with all kind of firewalls when he'd asked). Instantly a video activated, showing Skye, with the control-room of the bus as background, she was wearing the very clothes she'd been in the day she'd left with her parents.

"AC! Merry Christmas! Well, if all goes to plan you will be find this right before Christmas, just in time... if you find it earlier you'll have to wait. And you better not be planning on working through the holidays. I know you're really devoted to S.H.I.E.L.D. and all that, but everyone needs a little vacation every now and then... and I really hope you'll like the present I've set up." She smiled. "I've set it all up with a friend. If you're ready all you need to do is be at this address," She gestured and a smaller window popped up with an address in New York. "At five p.m. Sharp on Christmas Eve." She smiled brightly. "I know I'm not giving you much information to go on, but I hope you'll trust me. No one deserves to be alone on Christmas, you least of all, AC... hope you'll choose to take the risk, and be happy. See ya in a couple of months! Merry Christmas!"

It was three days to Christmas Eve, and while Phil couldn't help but think it was absolutely insane, there was a part of him that kept insisting that he give it a try. It's not like he'd anywhere to be that evening... and he did trust Skye. Even when the whole thing with Miles and her secrets had just happened he trusted her, he might not have known why exactly, but he did. So he would take the risk, and hope for the best. In any case, he doubted whatever Skye had planned for him would kill him...

Having made his decision, Phil put his tablet away, took hold of his bag and made the way to where the two remaining members of his team were waiting, by the opening bay door at the back of the bus. A group of workers were ready to begin working on maintenance and cleaning of the bus too; what no one was expecting was the man standing with them.

"Director Fury." May and Ward greeted in unison, both trying their best to hide their shock at the presence of the man.

"Nick..." Phil shrugged at him. "What brings you here?"

"You know what brings me here Phil." Nick told him quietly.

Indeed, Phil did. Nick had been insisting, ever since Phil had arranged for his team to have the winter holidays free, that Phil join him for Christmas.

"I already told you Nick, I'm not interested." Phil stated quiet calmly.

Actually, Phil had been a lot more vocal, explicit, and not a little vicious when expressing his refusal to joining Nick. Fury's attempts to convince Phil that they were family hadn't helped any, when Phil had asked him where he'd been when he'd desperately needed him, needed someone to help him save a member of his team... Phil wasn't ignorant to the fact that Fury never trusted Skye, not with her having been part of the Rising Tide before joining Phil's team. And while the director insisted it had nothing to do with that, that he'd been off-grid because of a mission (and Phil knew that to be true), and Skye wasn't really dead... the Level 8 Agent couldn't help but think that Fury should have done more to help.

The worst part was that no one seemed to care about Skye. It's not like the events on Italy hadn't been on record, especially with the emergency arrival to the hospital in Zurich, and what had happened yet. And yet no one had so much as offered their condolences to the team for their loss. Even Nick himself, all he'd done was justify his absence with a mission, he'd never even asked if Phil or his team needed anything, or offered even empty pleasantries and condolences... they simply did not care, for them Skye did not exist.

That was what really irked Phil, and why he refused to spend the holidays in the Triskellion, attending the usual parties all Agents with no families attended. He would rather be alone that with people who did not care at all... except, apparently, he did not have to be alone, Skye had made sure of that. Was it any wonder that he cared for the young woman as much as he did? Eve if nothing ever came from feeling like that, just feeling it made him happy... and there was that rather-intense kiss they'd shared in the lounge the day of her departure, which none of them had talked about before she had to leave...

"Phil..." Nick began.

"Besides." Phil interrupted his 'old friend' before he could begin a new round of attempts to convince his agent to stay. "I already have plans."

"Plans...?" Fury obviously wasn't expecting that. "Which are?"

"Nothing you need to bother yourself with Nick." He answered promptly.

It's not like he was going to tell his superior he didn't have the slightest idea, because the person who had made the arrangements for him hadn't seen fit to tell him a thing, not even who it was she'd worked the plan with! Still, Phil had to admit it was somewhat thrilling, to know there was a surprise waiting for him, a good surprise... and that he wouldn't be alone that Christmas.

**xXx**

That Tuesday Phil found himself standing right outside the door to the studio-apartment in the address Skye had left him, exactly at five in the afternoon. The was no bell to ring, so instead he knocked on the door briefly but strongly.

"Coming!" A female voice called from inside.

The door opened just a handful of seconds later. It took Phil no effort at all to realize who was on the other side: tall (though that was probably influenced a bit by the heeled boots she was wearing), with a rather curvaceous body, bright blue eyes, thick chocolate brown curls reaching her shoulder-blades, wearing thick pants, an equally thick sweater, a knitted scarf and a fuzzy and rather funny-looking hat on top of her head; Phil knew instantly who she was:

"Miss...Lewis?" He was in shock.

"Hey Agent-iPod-Thief." She greeted him brightly with her own personal nickname for him. "Or is it AC nowadays?"

The moment the question was asked, Phil realized what was going on.

"You're the one..." He began before trailing off, not quite sure how to describe what he expected, not quite sure what he expected at all.

"Skye asked me to help set this up." The aforementioned Miss Lewis nodded. "She explained to me what she planned, and I was delighted to help."

"I'm afraid I don't actually know what's supposed to happen." Phil admitted with a shrug.

"What do you mean you don't know?!" Lewis's eyes widened in shock. "She didn't tell me she was leaving you in the dark about the plan..." She grumbled. "Skye... I'm going to wring that girl's neck one of these days."

"What exactly is this plan supposed to entail?" Phil inquired. "Skye just told me it was a surprise, and to trust her..."

"And you came to an unknown address, with no idea whatsoever who and what you were even going to find, before she asked you to?" The young woman sounded more than a bit skeptical. "That's not what I would call standard S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol..."

She was right, of course; in fact, the whole things could even be considered as the exact opposite for standard S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol... but Skye had asked him to trust her, and how could he not? She'd proven time and again that she was worthy of that trust; and even with that brief video Phil had been able to tell that she really wanted to help him, to make sure he wouldn't be alone that Christmas. She had her family with her, her parents... and she'd wanted him to have someone as well... to have family...

It was as if a switch turned inside Phil's head, suddenly he had a very good idea who was inside that apartment.

"Clint...?" He murmured quietly.

Lewis seemed actually surprised that he'd been able to guess it so quickly, but she nodded.

"This is our apartment." She said, then elaborated. "Clint and I are together, it was our first anniversary just last month."

"Why is Clint here and not in his old apartment?" Phil inquired, having a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.

"Because that's a S.H.I.E.L.D. issue apartment, and that's all I'll be saying." She replied. "The rest simply isn't my story to tell."

Phil nodded, understanding and valuing that she was so willing to keep Clint's secrets.

"Oh, something else." Lewis added. "Right now it's just the two of us, but Tasha will be coming tomorrow... unless there is some kind of emergency or her latest mission takes longer, which shouldn't happen, but still."

"Skye made these arrangements?" Phil just wanted to confirm.

"She said, and I quote: 'Christmas is to be with family, and if AC needs a little push to reunite with his, then I'll give him that push', end quote." The brunette declared. "I wasn't actually expecting for her not to tell you anything at all; though, I suppose if she had any reason to believe you might chicken out..."

"I do not chicken out!" Phil sputtered. "I am a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent..."

"One that most of the organization, and the world as a whole, still believes dead." She reminded him in a no-nonsense tone.

The reminder of that particular detail was enough to shock Phil into stillness. No one was supposed to know he was alive! How could he have forgotten that?!

"Though, on that same line, how Fury thought he could keep your status a secret while parading you all around the globe, I have no idea." Lewis continued.

"Do the A... do they know I'm alive?" Phil asked, his voice quieter and more hesitant than he could have ever intended.

"Yes." Her eyes softened, as if sensing his feelings. "Tony saw you in some cell-video in youtube back in September. It was taken down before even JARVIS could copy it, but he was quite confident of what he'd seen. Even when he could find no trace of your name and status anywhere on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s systems beyond what happened to you in the helicarrier just before the battle of New York. You know how he is. Even without proof he was sure what he'd seen, and he told the others. Pepper and Steve were all for hunting you down, and if not you Fury, and demanding explanations, but Tasha and Clint convinced them that if you were staying away there must be a reason, Tony actually backed them up in that. Said you were clever, and you cared about all of them, the two together meant that regardless of whatever Fury might say, you wouldn't be staying away from them unless you really had to..."

Phil let out a sigh... for the Avengers, for all of them to have such faith in him, when he didn't really deserve it...

"Were they wrong?" She turned defensive at his expression, closing the door behind her even as she stepped in the hall, not wanting Clint to see Phil there if he wasn't planning on staying, or if something else was wrong.

"I'm afraid it was more complicated than that." Phil admitted with a sense of defeat. "To be honest Miss Lewis, until a few weeks ago I could hardly recall Agents Hawkeye and Black Widow... much less Clint and Tasha..."

Darcy Lewis was no fool, regardless of how she might choose to portray herself at times (especially when dealing with secret men-in-black-style organizations); she understood quite clearly the relevance of Phil using code-names in the first half of the sentence and then names, the difference there was, and what it meant.

"Someone messed with your mind?!" She barely managed to keep herself from screeching.

"I'm afraid so." Phil nodded.

"Tasha is not going to like this..." Darcy muttered, mostly to herself. "She's been keeping all the Avengers away, convinced that this is what you want..." She shook her head before picking up on something else. "You said a few weeks ago..."

"I remember now, yes." Phil nodded, glad she could pick up on such details. "There were... extenuating circumstances and most of the memories I'd lost came back to me. It wasn't easy, and it's taken a while for me to straighten out most of them. By that point I also decided it was a good idea to keep the distance, at least for the time being. With how precarious some of our latest missions have turned out to be..."

"You don't want to have two teams at risk at the same time."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does for the most part. Though that does not mean I miss Clint and Natasha any less..."

"Good to know. I'm sure Clint will be delighted to see you, and Natasha too."

"I hope so." He seemed to think something else then. "What surprises me is seeing you here, Miss Lewis, I thought you were working with Dr. Foster in Britain..."

"I no longer work for Jane, haven't for a year and a half." She pointed out. "First she had all the team of S.H.I.E.L.D. assistants, she didn't need me. After I finally managed to graduate your organization insisted on keeping me around, for security or something like that, so I was given a measly office job. Way too boring for me. I met Nat, we clicked, she trained me personally for a few months. If I wanted to I could probably take the test to become a field-Agent and pass it, but S.H.I.E.L.D. and I just haven't been on the same page lately... if you know what I mean."

Phil did not, though considering his own doubts and more complicated feelings regarding the agency he'd served for about half of his life, he could understand Darcy having her doubts, especially if she was as close to his old team as she seemed to be implying; if they'd told her even a fraction of what they'd gone through she would have more than enough reason to not only doubt S.H.I.E.L.D. but distrust them entirely.

The story of Darcy and how she'd come to be where she was right then had actually been more complicated than what she'd just said. There had been some bars, a one-night-stand with Clint which had developed into several sex-capades, then a not-relationship, and finally a relationship (half of that before she even met Natasha). Her training had actually begun after someone had tried to kill Clint and nearly got her instead, she refused to be the damsel in distress, or worse, collateral. Clint had tried to push her away, and when she refused, Natasha offered to train her. It was supposed to be just basic self-defense, but when Darcy turned to be a good student, they had decided to keep it going. She might have no interest in being an Agent, but she had every interest in being able to keep herself, and her loved ones, safe.

"I thought you had been in Greenwich..." Phil clarified.

"Oh!" She nodded. "I was, yes. When Erik called Jane decided to drop everything and go, leaving behind all the assistants, working in other projects. I found someone who could be her intern and hired him. I planned on staying a few days, maybe a week, while Ian got used to Jane and her working style... never planned on all that mess happening precisely then!"

Phil nodded, it sounded logical. And in some ways, it had been good luck that Darcy Lewis was around when things happened, she had previous experience with such events and contacts inside S.H.I.E.L.D., the new intern would have never known what to do.

"So, are you ready to go inside?" Darcy asked then, opening the door behind her.

A part of him wasn't ready, not at all. While he had no doubt that his reception would be a good one, he wasn't sure he deserved it, not after having forgotten him: Clint, his protege, his almost-little-brother, for so long... he especially wasn't ready to face and deal with the implications that S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken more from him than just the memories of the surgeries that restored his life; because if they'd taken Clint and Natasha, what else had they taken? And yet, at the same time, there as nothing he wanted more than to reconnect with them: Clint and Natasha, his almost siblings, almost children... his family.

Skye had truly known what she was doing when she left him that address, especially without giving him any details. If he'd known beforehand who would be waiting for him he might have never gone; over-thinking everything and never sure if it was a good idea, and he would have regretted it forever. Instead he'd chosen to trust that she somehow knew what she was doing, and there he was...

"Not at all." He admitted with a shrug and a hesitant smile. "Lets go."

"Lets go then." Darcy's smile just got wider as she turned to lead him back into the apartment. "Oh, and please call me Darcy, that whole 'Miss Lewis' thing reminds me way too much of my bosses at work... or my old professors back in Culver, and just no..."

"Very well, Darcy." Phil said, then remembered a question he'd forgotten to ask earlier and had been bothering from the start. "Just one more thing, how do you know Skye?"

"Oh, that?" Darcy shrugged as he walked away. "We shared a few classes in college."

The answer actually shocked Phil for a couple of seconds. Shared classes in college? Skye? The girl they all believed to be a high-school dropout? Granted, she'd never said she'd dropped out of high-school, they'd just assumed... and what a disservice they'd done to her. In a second of clarity Phil couldn't help but wonder what else they did not know about Skye? It seemed the girl was just full of secrets, beyond her parents and origins. It also made the Agent wonder why she hadn't told them, was it something as simple as the fact that they'd never asked, or she hadn't trusted them? Did they... did he, know Skye, at all?

Truth be told, it wasn't the first time he asked himself that question; but the last time had been when a man thought long dead had revealed to him what they knew about a baby found by S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Huan province in China, amidst a whole town of people who died trying to keep her safe from a danger unknown; and the time before that was back during the whole 'Miles Lydon incident', when he had yet to truly trust her. One time had been before he truly believed he knew Skye, the second in the end had just allowed him to know her a bit better, but now... now he was no idea if the person he 'knew' existed at all. And wasn't that a depressing thought?

**xXx**

A young woman with small eyes the color of stormy skies and shiny waves of brown hair to her mid-back, wearing an elven-style long-sleeved, shoulder-less tunic of the palest violet over a high-necked, sleeveless black top, charcoal-grey leggings and black leather boots stood in one of the medium-sized balconies on one side of the great golden palace in Asgard, elbows on the stone-rail as she watched the courtyard, the Eihenjar training, her forehead showing the tension she somehow managed to keep off the rest of her body.

"Lady Meneliel?" A servant called from behind.

"Yes?" She didn't even bother turning to answer, keeping her eyes on the courtyard.

"Lady Tawariel has asked me to remind you that your training with Lady Sif is due to begin in just a few minutes, my lady." The servant told her.

"I know." She answered, with the same air of indifference. "I'll be there."

She waited until the servant left, and until the Eihenjar were finished with their own training and gone as well, before taking the short way to the courtyard, jumping from the balcony to the nearby terrace, which had a staircase leading straight to the courtyard. By the time she stepped into the training room the Goddess of War, with her steel eyes and long raven-black hair in a tight ponytail was waiting for her, and obviously annoyed at being kept waiting.

Meneliel didn't say a word, she just sat down on a convenient bench, unlaced her boots, stepped out of them, stripped off her tunic and, once left in just her top and leggings, walked to the mats where Sif, dressed in a similar attire except red and black, was waiting.

"Do your warm-up!" Sif ordered sharply.

The younger woman didn't reply to the sharpness of the tone, so different from the mix of respect, awe and deference all the servants and most other Asgardians treated her with. Truth be told, she had grown used to that tone coming from the woman before her. So instead she simply used a leather tong to pull her hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck (to keep it away from her face) and began her warm-up.

"How many times must we go through this?!" Sif demanded hotly as she paced in front of the brunette. "Every day I tell you to be here on time for your training, and every single day you're exactly three minutes late! Do you think I am joke? That my time is a joke? Do you believe that just because your father is who he is that gives you the right to treat me, my time, however you please?! I am not your slave!"

Finally, Meneliel could take it no more. She'd been hearing the same rant (or variations of it), from the fourth or fifth day she'd been in Asgard, and that had been four weeks before! Usually she would let Sif rant all she wanted, it's not like it made any difference whatsoever, but she had finally grown tired of it. While being the two of them alone allowed Sif a freedom of speech she would not have otherwise, the girl hated having to listen to her every day spouting venom directed at her, and her father.

"Ok!" She cried out, loud enough to interrupt Sif. "That's enough!"

"Enough?" Sif demanded in a challenging tone. "You have no idea what enough is! Neither does your father, the monster..."

"I said enough!" Menel demanded with more strength, and some magic spun into her words. "I usually prefer to ignore your rather repetitive and unoriginal rantings, but I think this has been going on long enough. You keep insulting me and my father for no good reason."

"No good reason?!" Sif's voice went through one, probably two octaves in her disbelief. "I'll have you know that the reasons and many and varied..."

"All based on lies or half-truths." Menel interrupted her again. "When Adar chose you to be my trainer I expected something else. He told me you were the goddess of war, one of the best warriors in all nine realms: strong, wise and willful; he also warned me you didn't exactly like him, which I'll admit is to be expected considering your shared past, but by Yggdrassil he never told me you were such a bitch!"

"What...?" Sif was obviously not expecting that. "You little..."

"Shut up!" Menel snapped. "I've been listening to you ranting insults against my father for the last three weeks, this time you will listen to me for a change!"

Sif was livid at the blatant disrespect from her student, she was doing the brat a favor by being her trainer! Nevermind that she had to do it because of a certain spell from her father... Sif was one of less than a handful of people who knew it wasn't really Odin who was ruling over Asgard in that moment. It hadn't been by her own interest that she'd learnt the truth, nor the consequences that came with such knowledge. Loki had only told her because he needed her to take care of Menel's training, as he was too busy pretending to be Odin and the girl's elven mother was no warrior, though she knew some self-defense at least. Loki had also placed a very elaborate spell on Sif to make sure she wouldn't say a word of what she'd learnt, magical chains of sorts that kept her from speaking the truth before those who did not have such knowledge already; Sif called them 'slave chains', which forced her to obey Loki's orders as if he were her master...

She had known Loki didn't like her, it's not like they'd ever been friends, and after the mess that had taken place following Thor's failed coronation... she had been very much on alert, in case Loki ever returned and tried to kill her; turns she'd been at least half-right, though she could have never expected the form her punishment ended up taking.

Her orders were very specific: Menel needed to be trained in combat, Sif was to be the one to do it, and they only had one month, as the girl would be returning to Midgard after that (though Sif could not understand why). In that moment Sif decided that her orders were wide enough to cover her taking out her annoyance on her 'student', so so she rushed the girl, intent on giving her a good beating, something that would make her remember that only one of them had any right to yell at the other... and it wasn't the brat, no matter who's daughter she might be.

A handful of seconds later, as she looked at the wood-paneled ceiling of the training room they were in, the muscles in her back spasming in the pain of her rather forceful slam, Sif couldn't help but think she must have miscalculated somehow, there was no way the brat had just taken her down, and in five seconds flat! No, the goddess had miscalculated, either that or the little brat had cheated and used magic... after all, the apple never did fall far off the tree...

Sif tried to stand up, but before she could gain traction the younger woman knelt, with her knee strategically placed on the older warrior's thorax in such a way that Sif could breathe, but barely enough to remain conscious, and nowhere near enough to gain enough strength and leverage to force the other off her and get on her feet.

"Like I was saying," The brunette stated. "You will listen."

**xXx**

Phil couldn't help but look back up, in the direction of the fifth-floor balcony he knew belonged to the apartment where he'd spent the last week and a half in the company of two of the people he cared for the most in the whole universe, and one more had been added to the list: Darcy...

It hadn't been easy. As wonderful as being near the former Strike-Team-Delta was, it also forced him to accept that someone had messed with his mind, a lot more than entirely necessary to ensure his recovery after the TAHITI project. He'd remembered the job, the co-workers, but not the family, the siblings/children he saw Clint and Natasha as... the bond they'd shared, from the moment he chose to laugh at one of Clint's jokes instead of reporting him for misconduct, to the moment he backed him up in his decision to take in the Black Widow instead of killing her; to giving his approval for them to be in the list as candidates for the Avengers Initiative; being informed by Nick that Clint was compromised, and then having to pass the information to Natasha... to finally having to let go, believing he would never see them again.

He would never forgive the people who'd messed with so much of his memories, his mind; he wasn't even sure yet that he could forgive Nick for using the TAHITI project on him despite his insistence that it must be shot down but maybe, just maybe, seeing people like Clint and Tasha again made it all worth it...

"Good luck boss." Clint smirked at him during their goodbyes. "Please avoid angering psychotic gods unless Nat and I are around to save your hide."

Phil shook his head, he hadn't told them about Loki and... well, everything on that front; but that hadn't been his story to tell. If, in the future, they worked with Clint and Natasha, depending on the situation, Skye might have to use some of her abilities... Phil honestly did not know if they would accept her if they knew who her father was...

"Goodbye Phil..." Natasha actually, somehow, allowed herself to embrace him, a short hug. "Do not be a stranger."

He knew what she meant. Even if they weren't on the same missions, even if they couldn't look up the missions his team was on; they knew they were important, and dangerous, they all wanted him to know he had people he could rely on, if he ever needed backup. It was a certainty he probably had had in the past, he'd just forgotten it for a while... it was nice to have it again.

"You take care as well." He nodded. "All of you."

On the way out he couldn't help but look up, at the balcony. There was no one there, of course; they were too good Agents to risk calling attention to themselves like that. So with that in mind, he turned his attention back to the street, and hailed a cab. It was time to go back to work. It would still be a while before Skye returned... however she planned on doing so, but it was time for their team to get back to doing their job. After all, holidays or not, someone needed to be ready to stop Centipede the next time they tried something...

**xXx**

Meneliel stood quietly serenely in the middle of the throne room, dressed in a simple but beautiful floor-length with a double-skirt (the top one open at the front), long-sleeved (translucent and open from the elbow down), wide-v-necked light-lavender colored (her favorite color) elven-style gown with delicate pale-gold embroidery on the neckline, the front of the thorax, the middle of the sleeves (where they turned translucent) and down the opening of the top skirt. She was also wearing pale-gold slippers on her feet and on her head, settled elegantly on her well-combed hair, was an intricate tiara made of mithril ('pure silver' only found in Alfheim and used by royals among the Ljósálfar), with a single blue stone in the middle which, her father claimed, brought out her stormy eyes (his eyes).

She was standing there in complete calm, despite the presence of a considerate number of Eihenjar, two of them flanking the throne where the King sat, the rest scattered throughout the wide room. It was something no one but her mother knew, how nervous the Royal Asgardian Guards used to make her. Even if she had no memories of those first days, she hadn't actually been with her mother anymore at the time, and she knew not all of them could be like the one who had hurt her family... fact was, one of them had hurt her mother, had also killed a woman who was nothing but gentle and compassionate, who the young Menel could almost imagine as a grandmother, strong but gentle, strict but loving...

Still, she had finally managed to overcome her, somewhat intense, fear of the Eihenjar. She hadn't been late for a single training session in almost a month! Finally able to walk past them as they finished their own training in the courtyards without feeling like they might turn against her at any moment. Too bad it had taken her so long, she hadn't actually had training the last day, as Sif had been sent off-world on a mission for the King.

Menel knew what the mission was about. The 'Siren', Lorelei, had been found; she'd managed o go off-grid after her escape during Malekith's attack on Asgard in November, and after two months they'd finally found her, and in Midgard of all places! Menel had wanted to go herself, but her mother had reminded her she had the final part of her training, as well as her own mission to handle, before she could return to her home... it was actually one of two homes now. While she couldn't exactly refer to Asgard as home, not with all the hurt her parents, and indirectly she, had been through there, her parents were home, just as much as the team waiting for her on Midgard. Also, she had very carefully laid out plans for that return!

Going back to the present Menel did an elaborate curtsy, making sure never to look him in the eyes (most would believe it was in respect of the King, in fact it was because she feared seeing her father's smirk hidden behind the serious expression and that would get her cackling, and it really wasn't the moment to lose control!).

"You have my deepest, most absolute gratitude, your majesty." She recited, as practiced, in the soft, melodic tones Asgardians expected from elves. "Your realm is without a doubt magnificent, and your people have been very welcoming to me. This has been a wonderful experience, one I hope to be able to repeat in the future."

"Your presence in Asgard has been a welcomed one, child." 'Odin' replied. "May the Norns favor you in whatever path you shall take next."

"As great as it's been to explore Asgard, and spend time with Naneth again, it's time for me to go on." Menel went on. "Worlds to explore, paths to be walked on, adventures to live..."

'Odin' barely managed to keep himself from shaking his head at the barely-hidden giddy tone in his daughter's voice, or smirking at her. He was going to miss her... even with him having to hide and pretend most of the time, it had been good, very good, to have her around in the last couple of months; he also knew Tawariel had greatly enjoyed having her there as well (she at least did not have to hide their connection). As far as Asgard was concerned, Tawariel was an elven lady at the service of the 'Allfather' (her psychic ability had improved considerably since re-awakening); she'd been able to help around Asgard with some of her foreknowledge, which had ingratiated her with the people of the realm (it also served to justify her presence, both in Asgard and the palace itself). The story they had decided to tell the Aesir concerning the mother-daughter pair was that Meneliel had recently become off-age and had decided to fulfill her ambition to travel through the realms to learn all she could about them. It served to justify her presence in Asgard (and possible future visits), as well as her upcoming presence in Midgard should anyone ever find her there; and if she ever decided to go through with it and see what other realms were all about... at least one was already in her plans. Though the rest would come after she had reunited with her team and settled into her new identity.

With a few more rehearsed lines, it was over. Menel curtsied once more before taking her leave, masterfully ignoring the two Eihenjar acting as her escorts on her way to the stables.

She had already said her goodbyes to her mother in private, something necessary considering the kind of things that might be overheard by less-than-friendly ears. Tawariel was also rather emotional regarding the departure of her only child and decided it was better not to meet her on the way out, least she lose control and break the image of 'perfect serene elven lady' she had been carefully cultivating in the weeks since her presence in Asgard had been revealed.

She reached the Observatory at the end of the Rainbow Bridge in almost no time. She was still laughing inside by then. As her father had refused to keep Sleipnir in the stables all the time, the stud was free to run around Asgard all the time (even if still trapped in the form of a horse). Her half-brother just loved racing her whenever she was on a horse, making a game out of it. She understood that he rarely had the chance to truly have fun, and her parents didn't get the chance to spend much time with him, so she indulged him whenever she could (there was a reason she had taken to horse-riding every other day) with the excuse of exploring the realm.

"Be good, big brother..." She whispered into his ears right before they reached the bridge. "Take good care of Mom and Dad, okay?"

Sleipnir couldn't answer her, of course, not verbally or telepathically, but the two understood each other anyway. His affirmative was enough to make her smile and kiss his brow one more time before turning her own mount around and rushing down the rainbow bridge.

Heimdall was waiting there for her. Heimdall... if there was one person in all of Asgard that came close to being hated in the way she hated Odin, it was the gate-keeper. Menel may have made peace with Sif after the 'smack-down' in the training rooms a week before, but she didn't imagine ever being able to do the same with Heimdall.

For the time being it seemed like the man did not know who she truly was, or that it was her father and not Odin on the throne. Though her dad had warned her that the Gatekeeper saw much more than he ever saw fit of sharing with others. After all, he'd known the truth about Loki's own heritage long before the sorcerer himself knew... he might know already about Loki's games and only be keeping the secret until the right moment... and wasn't that a dangerous thought?

"Greetings, Lady Meneliel." The huge man in the golden armor greeted her.

"Greetings, Gatekeeper." She responded in kind, getting off the horse with the grace expected of an elf. "The time has come for me to depart."

"I am aware." The Gatekeeper nodded, taking his spot. "I'm told you are traveling to Midgard."

"I am." Meneliel nodded.

"Have you been made aware of the midgardian organizations that might be aware of your arrival and seek you out?" Heimdall asked politely.

"I know." Meneliel nodded. "It is why I shall place a cloaking spell on myself, at least until I know the place better. I have no intention of causing a ruckus, but neither do I want to have mortals following my every step."

"I see..." He did, and in a short while, he wouldn't, not anymore. "The measure has, of course, been approved by the Allfather, so all I can do is wish you well, my lady."

Menel nodded, moving to stand in the right spot as the Gatekeeper placed the key, his sword, in the lock of the Observatory.

*Namarië (Farewell) Naneth, Adar...* She sent the thought on its way.

*Namarië Lirimaer amin...* Her mother, her naneth, replied promptly. *Tenna' ento lye omenta (Until next we meet).*

One of her priority studies had been elvish; she had even had the help of magic in order to fully learn the language in the limited time they had (she would still have to learn the Ancient Tongue (Norse) on her own time and effort, though); still, it was necessary to fulfill the illusion of a born and raised elven-lady. It also allowed her to communicate with her parents in a language few Aesir were interested in knowing, and would give her a way of addressing them in Midgard, without others knowing who she was referring to.

*Take care, my beloved child...* Adar, her Father, added softly.

Menel's eyes were closed as she savored the psychic touch of her family one last time before she departed, so focused she was on that, she barely heard the Gatekeeper's final words to her:

"Safe journey, princess..."

Menel was still half lost in shocked at those words when a corner of her conscience forcefully reminded her of the next part of her plan. The Bifrost might have been opened to Midgard, but she was getting off earlier. Her father had helped arrange things for her to slip into the Shadow Paths in the right moment so she could make it to a totally different realm, without being detected by Heimdall or anyone else. Since the Gatekeeper had already heard that she would be cloaking herself, it wouldn't surprise him not to see her land.

It was certainly worrying to consider the last words he'd said right before her departure. Had he called her princess because her mother was supposed to be elven royalty, or did he somehow know the truth about her? If it was the first, why had he never referred to her in that manner before? And if it was the second, what did that mean for her parents, for their ruse?

Menel was so very worried for her family in that moment, and yet as she reached the exact spot in her journey she knew there was no time for brooding, she needed to continue with her plan. So with that in mind she focused on calling forth the magic her father had woven in her to help with her first official Shadow Walk (she didn't know how to do it herself yet, it was a very hard talent to master, and dangerous to do without full mastery, or external assistance), so she focused on Loki's help, and then slipped into the Shadow Plane.

It was like walking in a world with no light, no sound, no smell, a place that didn't fully exist... which was, actually, pretty much the definition of the Shadow Plane. It was the very edge of the Realms, and of the Abyss, where they overlapped each other. One of the secret ways to travel the universe (far more dangerous, yet also much faster and easier to navigate, than the Hidden Roads -like the one her father and brother had used to get themselves and Jane Foster to Svartalfheim-), one she hoped to be able to master one day, just like her dad...

After what seemed like forever, and no time at all, the young princess slipped out of the Shadow Plane and back into an actual realm, this one much different than Asgard... or Midgard. There was so much mist some might believe the Realm itself was made of it, enough that Menel couldn't see her feet, or much in any given direction. She might have worried about being lost if she hadn't heard a voice calling her right then:

"Menel..." The voice whispered, as if in the wind.

The brunette reacted automatically, spinning around to face the figure that had managed to approach with her noticing. It was another woman, taller and at least a bit older than her, with hair so dark it seemed to blend into the shadows surrounding them, topped by a tiara that seemed to be made entirely of crystals and somehow glowed even in the darkness; she was encased in a cloak of the darkest cobalt but Menel was sure she could see something lighter underneath it, maybe even white. Still, the colors mattered little, the eyes, even with the shadows, were enough of a calling card: blue, reflecting the odd-glow from the crystal-tiara and ever changing like the skies, like stormy skies, the same eyes as her... the same eyes as their father... there was no confusing who the statuesque woman standing before her was:

"Sister..." Menel whispered in a mix of awe on delight. "Hela..."

"Welcome Menel, sister mine..." The older woman told her in a voice that seemed to echo all around them, despite being quiet. "I've been waiting for you."

No more words needed to be said, at least not for the time being. The two young women were due for a long conversation of course, so many things that needed to be discussed, that was why Menel was there after all. But the time would come to share their past, and to discuss their future; in that moment only one thing truly mattered: the connection between two sisters meeting each other for the very first time...

**xXx**

Sif stepped out of the bright light of the Bifrost with the ease of someone who's done it thousands of times, who's grown used to it. The same couldn't be said for the woman being 'escorted' by her, though that could probably be attributed to the chains that restrained her by wrists, ankles and waist, along with the brace-looking device around her neck, which prevented her from speaking and the spell of her voice from enchanting any men who heard her.

Heimdall didn't ask any questions, it really wasn't his place, instead he directed Sif's attention to where a group of Eihenjar on horses and a cart stood waiting for her and her re-captured prisoner. Lorelei made a desperate attempt to get away when seeing the guards, but it was useless, she'd been defeated, and she well knew it.

Not a word was said by any of the guards as they made their way to the palace. Where they left Sif and her prisoner in the Throne Room. There, the King lounged somewhat lazily on his throne, a number of Eihenjar keeping guard around the room; there was also the Lady Tawariel, standing half hidden by a column near the dais where the throne sat, observing everything in silence.

"So the great Siren, Lorelei, has been finally re-captured." The King declared with obvious satisfaction at the scene. "Report, Lady Sif!"

"The sorceress was found on Midgard, on a territory they call California." Sif declared in a stoic tone. "Their organization, S.H.I.E.L.D., sent a team upon my arrival and to assist in the capture of Lorelei. There were material loses and injuries on the mortals, both civilians and among those who sought to bring justice, but no loss of life."

"That is a satisfactory result." The King announced, before focusing his attention on Lorelei. "And you, I imagine you've missed home, your room is exactly as you left it."

It was probably more cynical and cruel than anything the real Allfather would have said... maybe not; especially if Sif considered what she knew then that she hadn't known before.

"That is all Lady Sif, you may take your leave." The King dismissed her.

She made her decision rather abruptly. She had been thinking it for a while, ever since the preparations had begun for her return to Asgard with Lorelei, in fact; but it wasn't until that very moment that she acknowledge a decision had been made, not until the words were actually out of her mouth already:

"If His Majesty allows, I would like to request a private audience."

A brow arched, in a gesture that, if anyone had been paying any real attention, they would have known did not belong to Odin, but was so characteristic of one of his sons. Still, he did not say a word, instead nodding his head once before leading the way to one of the private rooms adjoining the throne room. He stopped the Eihenjar from joining them, leaving just Sif, Tawariel and himself in the room the moment the doors were closed and sealed; then he turned again to face her, the disguise fading away like water, leaving Loki in its place.

"Since you requested a private audience I imagine you won't mind speaking to me like this." He declared in an almost careless manner.

And yet, there was nothing careless, Sif was sure it must be the other way around in fact. After all, trickster or not, it couldn't be easy to have to pretend being someone who you aren't every hour of every day... especially someone they hated so and, according to two separate individuals she'd spoken to, for entirely justified reasons:

_She was on her back, a knee on her chest making it hard for her to breathe and impossible for her to get up; the owner of the knee meanwhile was staring at her intensely enough Sif wouldn't be surprised if her magic shot out at some point soon... until it became obvious that the younger woman was planning on using a weapon other than magic to fight back:_

_"Like I was saying," The brunette stated. "You will listen. I am Meneliel Lokidottir Tawardottir, being the child of an elven high-lady and an Asgardian prince I still lived all my life before this trip among humans, as one of them, do you know why?" She didn't wait for an answer. "It wasn't that my parents did not love me. All the opposite in fact. They loved me so much they gave me up, sacrificed the chance for us to be a family, so I could survive. So your Allfather couldn't get his hands on me, ruin me, the way he's ruined my sister and brothers! They did all they could so I could live, be free. And do you want to know what they got in exchange? Days of physical and mental torture, having to endure it themselves and watching the other do the same; then, in the end, my mother was condemned to a box of a cell no one but your King even knew existed, where she spent the next 24 years, while my father was beaten to an inch of death before all memories of my mother and I were stripped from his mind! And that wasn't even all, in his hunt for me your King saw fit to destroy a small town and two tactical teams of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, hundreds of people dead, good, innocent people, because he wanted to destroy me!"_

_"Why would he want that?!" Sif did not understand._

_"How the hell should I know?" Menel retorted. "In case you missed it, Odin hates my father for no good reason! I mean, the bastard took a baby in, knowing exactly what his heritage was, and then spent the next thousand years belittling him, mentally and emotionally torturing him, for things that were in no way his fault!"_

_"Loki is no saint..." Sif began._

_"Of course not, I wouldn't expect him to be. But if you think he should have just 'turned the other cheek' every time, that's not being a saint, that's being idiotic, and having a death wish!"_

_Sif grudgingly, and only mentally, admitted there was some truth to the girl's words, but she still wasn't convinced of everything else. The brat was biased!_

_"I still think you exaggerate with the Allfather wanting you dead." The Warrior goddess replied._

_"You think..." Menel let out an exasperated sigh. "You know about my father's other children, right? Or at least about some of them..."_

_"Lady Hela, Queen of Helheim, the Great Serpent Jormungandr and the Bloody Wolf, Fenrir..." Sif enlisted as if she were reading from a textbook._

_"Yes, that'll do. Tell me something, Sif, do you know why they're where they are currently? Imprisoned, exiled, however you wish to see it."_

_"The Allfather sentenced them for use of Dark Arts..." Sif answered dutifully. "Loki was forgiven as he was ignorant of his children's doings, influenced as they were by their ignoble mother..."_

_"Yadda, yadda..." Menel interrupted. "What kind of Dark Arts?"_

_That drew Sif short._

_"You don't know, do you?" Menel inquired. "No one does. What is a Dark Art? Something evil one would expect. And how much evil do you think a couple of children and a teen-aged girl, by Aesir standards at least, would be capable of being so young and hybrids?"_

_Sif couldn't help herself, the brat's words actually got her thinking._

_"Truth is, none of them did anything, none of us did anything." Menel finally included herself again. "Unless you think a two day old baby can somehow make use of dark arts in such a level as to threaten the supposed king of the gods... or at all!" She rolled her eyes before finally getting back on her feet. "But you don't have to take my word for it. Research it. Look it up, you'll realize there is nothing about what happened that day."_

_"There has to be something." Sif insisted as she sat up. "Even if what you say is true, there has to be a record of... something..."_

_"Why?" Menel half-challenged her instructor. "It's not like anyone cares. In all the hundreds of years that have passed since that day no one has ever cared. Not about Angrboda's mysterious death in that fire, about how three children were supposed to be a threat against the Allfather, or a baby in my case; no one cared about the two boys who were forced to stay in animal forms for the rest of time, simply because they happen to be shape-shifters that enjoy spending time in forms other than human! No one cared about sending a boy into exile, as the only of his kind, deep in the oceans of a world not his own... or stabbing another boy, through the mouth with a sword, and for what? Something they might do someday?" A single tear fell down her cheek and she brushed it away harshly. "There is something in Midgard called a 'self-fulfilling prophecy...' and if your Ragnarok is not one, I don't know what is..."_

_"Ragnarok..." Sif repeated._

_She remembered then, the rumors that said the children had tried to start Ragnarok using Dark Arts, that was why they were condemned, but how could children ever have that kind of power, or a newborn baby? Unless... unless it wasn't the children who could do it, but their adult selves, and if that was the case, was punishing them for something they might do actually saving Asgard, or condemning them all. A 'self fulfilling prophecy', the little princess had said..._

_"So, are we going to train or what?" Menel inquired, going back to her warm-up and pulling her instructor back to reality._

_"Even better." Sif declared with an almost sadistic smirk. "We're gonna spar."_

_"What?!" It was obvious the little princess wasn't expecting that._

_"Yes." Sif nodded, taking a stance. "I don't know how you did what you did a few minutes ago, but it's quite clear to me that you have some training. So you will stop playing games and take this seriously. Spar!"_

_The brunette let out a breath that could have been a sigh but said not a word, instead she dropped into a low stance, one leg folded beneath her, the other extended to the side, one hand on the floor, ready to support her, and the other on guard before her. If Sif wanted her to really fight, she would; she wasn't sure how well it would work, she was a bit rusty what with her lack of serious training in the last few months, but still... maybe it was time to stop playing games and give it her all, for real this time._

However, while the talk with Meneliel had certainly got her thinking, it was until she spoke with the Son of Coul that she realized just how wrong her beliefs were...

_Lorelei was all chained and muzzled, ready to be taken back to her cell in Asgard. All that was left to do was wait for the pre-arranged time, when Heimdall would open the Bifrost to get the two women back to Asgard. Meanwhile, they were waiting inside the vessel where the Son of Coul and his team traveled, and Sif had decided to follow him so they could talk._

_Phil didn't say anything when he saw her step inside his office, not even when she closed and locked his door, he just waited, knowing that whatever she had to say must be important._

_"It brings me joy to see such an honorable man back among the living." She declared eventually. "Though I must ask, why is it that Thor is unaware of this development? You have asked that I keep it to myself, and I shall, but I fail to understand why this joyous news cannot be shared with him! Thor considers you a friend, he would be delighted to know you're back."_

_"While it makes me happy to believe he would feel that way, there are more things at stake here than joy at a return, or friendship." Phil tried to explain. "My team and I are currently on a very important mission, we cannot afford distractions, or to have people know we're coming, which would surely happen is more people than absolutely necessary became aware of my presence."_

_"So you have to keep your return a secret for the sake of your duty?" Sif made an effort to understand, even if she'd never been in such a situation._

_"Pretty much." Phil shrugged. "Truth is, most of them, of the Avengers, are aware of the fact I'm alive, but they also understand that there is a reason why I haven't contacted them. Thor... I am not sure if he's capable of such subtleties."_

_Sif didn't answer but she was forced to admit, at least to herself, that he was right._

_"I am curious." Phil chose to change the topic. "What will happen to Lorelei when you get her back to Asgard? Will she be executed?"_

_"I very much doubt it." Sif muttered angrily. "Seeing as how I was given specific instructions to get her back alive. The King probably has some kind of plan involving her..."_

_Phil was warring with himself, wondering if she was aware of who the 'King' truly was, when Sif answered the question all on her own._

_"That bastard Loki must be planning something!" She snarled._

_It was until the last word was out of her mouth that Sif realized exactly what she had just said, she didn't even clap her hands over her mouth, no, she was much to shocked about the fact that she had been able to say anything out-loud at all... that and the fact that the mortal sitting before her didn't show the least bit of surprise at her words..._

_"You know..." She whispered in shock._

_"I know." Phil answered calmly. "Your King paid us a visit a couple of months ago. It was a rather...enlightening visit."_

_"Did he threaten you, your people?" Sif asked, almost frantic with worry._

_While she hardly knew any of the mortals, she had come to greatly respect Agent May, her obvious ability in combat; Ward had been good, even under Lorelei's spell; and while the other two were obviously not warriors, she was not so egocentric as to ignore the value of people of science like them... or Thor's Jane Foster._

_"No!" Phil corrected her. "Not at all. He saved the life of someone very dear to me... to us all."_

_Sif's expression clearly showed her disbelief at the mere idea of Loki saving anyone, much less a mortal, and someone who was cared for by the man he'd previously killed?!_

_"Skye is..." He had trouble ordering his thoughts. "She's young, impetuous, and well-loved by everyone in this team. During a recent mission we had in Italy things happened, most of the team was lost along the way, before we could finish the mission. She took it upon herself to doing it, and it cost her, dearly... she was badly hurt by the man we had been trying to catch, left to die in his cellar. We barely got there in time and yet... even though we managed to get her to a hospital, we were told there was nothing that could be done except make her comfortable. Loki and Tawar arrived, right when we were losing our last hope, he saved her..."_

_"Loki and... Lady Tawariel?" Sif suddenly connected all the points. "You mean Meneliel?!"_

_"That is her birthname, yes." Phil nodded._

_"The daughter of Loki is part of this team?" She still couldn't believe it._

_"She was, and will be again as soon as she comes back." The Agent nodded, full of faith._

_"That's why Loki insisted so much on having me train her, that's why they said she couldn't stay long on Asgard." Sif understood abruptly. "She's coming back here, to this."_

_"She is, yes."_

_And just like that, in an instant, everything Sif believed, everything she had believed for years, all the knowledge she'd based her life upon, shattered, to be rebuilt into something completely new._

Nervous as she was, Sif forced herself to look at Loki straight in the eye as she spoke.

"I am here to swear my oaths." She announced.

The declaration was so unexpected, so different from anything either Loki or Tawar might have expected, neither of them knew exactly what to say to it.

"I already have your oaths." Loki finally managed to say, when the shocked had passed.

"You have my obedience." Sif clarified. "And I suppose, for the most part, that might be enough for you." She straightened to her full height before adding. "I'm now offering you my loyalty."

* * *

And somehow what was supposed to be just a filler chapter ended up the longest one yet!

I know I made a lot of jumps, in scenes and time. There are two reasons for that: One, I didn't want to drag the story much longer; Two, the things that happened there will either be recounted in flashbacks at the appropriate time (like with Sif's memories of the two conversations) or it will just be mentioned in passing, if it happens to not be as important.

Next chapter: Skye is making the final preparations for her return when unexpected trouble during one of her team's missions ends up putting a life in danger. Decisions will be made as people both discover and decide who they really are...

Edit: The missing italics in the flashbacks have been fixed. I'm going out of town for a long weekend and since I've just begun writing the next chapter I don't know if I'll finish it on time before I leave. If I don't I shall finish it and post it as soon as I get back (either Sunday afternoon or Monday morning), my apologies in advance.


	6. Identity

So, I'm going out of town in a couple of hours, and will not be able to access a computer for the duration of the trip. (My Tablet is good for reading mails and fics, but not for posting). I almost ended making you wait until Sunday but... be happy! It's here. I managed to finish this last night, so here we are. Also, please excuse any mistakes, as it must be obvious I didn't exactly have a lot of time to spell-check this.

This is were the first part of the series ends... enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 6. Identity **

The young, tanned, blue eyed, brunette, woman in a black thin-strapped top, a lavender sweater with a wide-neckline, dark-washed jean-skirt, high boots and flashy sunglasses perched on the top of her head, smiled brightly as she signed the last paper on her desk. With that she was finally finished with the last part of her preparations. It had taken her a while, longer than she would have wanted, though no longer than she was realistically expecting. Finally, everything was ready... wanting nothing more than to celebrate she went to deliver all the papers to the proper departments before saying her goodbyes, she was on the way to her favorite ice-cream parlor (it might still be early march, but she just loved the cold of the ice-cream) when she abruptly crashed against a young blonde in jeans and a green blazer.

"I'm sorry... excuse me... I'm in a hurry..." The blonde girl babbled as she rushed past her.

In the end, the brunette couldn't help her curiosity. She knew who the blonde was, and she could think of less than a handful of reasons for her to be rushing in such a way. Her suspicions were confirmed and curiosity rewarded when, a few blocks later, she found Uptown New York in an absolute mess (which wasn't exactly news, but still).

There were a bunch of robots, Doom-bots, some had taken to calling them. There were already some individuals in the area, doing their best to keep the situation under control. Most notably was Spider-Man, who used his webs to keep the Bots from leaving the area where the fight was taking place. She also noticed that several of the robots already down had arrows embedded in them, making it easy to see who had taken them down.

A quick call on her cellphone and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been alerted and were sending a team. She could have left it at that... until she heard a cry:

"Phil!"

The young brunette had no idea who had just cried out that name; but even without having seen him yet, she was quite sure she was referring to that Phil...

Without a single word the well-dressed young woman shifted into a different image, that of a warrior: in a grayish-violet short battle dress, leather and dark-golden armor; her hair (which had previously been in a tight ponytail) was magically twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck; while in her hand appeared a short metallic staff which grew almost to her full height with just a thought (it was her favored weapon).

Without stopping to consider the possible ramifications of her actions, Menel threw herself into the fight. Delivering hits with her staff strong enough to dent, if not downright break, the Doom-bots; she was also willing to use her feet when necessary, her boots sturdy enough (reinforced with magic) to withstand battle. She kept going until she'd pretty much made a path through the small park that had become their battleground. When reaching the other side she found herself facing the business end of what looked like a modified gun, in the hands of a girl she could remember quite clearly, thought it was obvious the older girl did not recognize her...

"I come in peace?" Menel offered in a half-question, hands half-raised, shortened staff in her left. "Honestly. I don't want to hurt you."

"Where did you come from...?" The other brunette, Darcy Lewis, asked, looking Menel up and down. "That get-up... are you Asgardian?"

"Close." Menel admitted. "However..."

She didn't get the chance to finish her practiced lie (the same that had been told in Asgard upon her arrival, to justify her existence and presence there) or to even consider telling some more of the truth to her old friend. Before a single word (truth or lie) could leave her lips all her senses (especially the supernatural ones) screamed a warning at her: there was danger coming from behind, it was close and it was bad. The she-elf reacted instinctively, spinning around, returning her staff to its holder at the base of her spine before raising both hands, palms wide, before her, calling on her magic.

Darcy had just noticed the threat coming at them when a shimmering wall appeared almost at the unknown girl's fingertips, blocking the ray the Doom-bots had just shot at them. The moment the rays ran out of energy Menel had her staff on hand and enlarged again and she threw at the enemies, taking down half of them in a matter of seconds, the others fell just as quickly to several arrows shot precisely on their most vulnerable spot.

The last robots fell in the next couple of minutes. Right after the last one fell, a flash of red and blue from the corner of her eye called Menel's attention to a small alley, where Spider-Man had just landed, beside none other than the blonde in the green blazer that had crashed against Menel in her civilian identity. The two teenagers recognized the brunette young woman, nodding in her direction once before the blonde wound her arms around the superhero's neck he shot a new webline high up, and they were off. No one but Menel had noticed them at all.

Hawkeye was beside Darcy less than a minute later; and it was that Menel realized why Darcy had been standing so stiffly in place, rather than running for cover: behind her was none other than Phil Coulson, unconscious, and badly hurt.

**xXx**

Minutes later Menel stood in a corner of the small bedroom while Darcy Lewis and Clint Barton worked together on cleaning the serious wound on the back of Phil Coulson's left shoulder. It was pretty deep and had yet to stop bleeding, dark blood; though none of them knew if it was because of the injury itself, dirt, of if the Bots had had some kind of poison... it wasn't good.

"We need to get him to a hospital!" Clint snapped abruptly.

"Yeah, genius, and how exactly do you plan on getting a dead man to the hospital?!" Darcy retorted, her nervousness pushing her to edge.

"If you allow me, I may be able to help." Menel offered right then.

"You?" Clint turned all his frustrations on her instantly. "Who are you anyway?"

"Meneliel Tawardottir, you can call me Menel for short." She introduced herself formally.

"You from Asgard?" He sounded very guarded.

It was then Menel understood why the man's identity had been nagging at him. He was one of the men her father had taken control of during the chitauri invasion... It would have been enough to get anyone cursing six ways to Sunday, and a part of the little princess wanted to do that, but the sight of the man bleeding on the bed was enough to keep her focused.

"My heritage and origins are kinda complicated to explain." She said evasively, not wanting to outright lie, but unwilling to say the full truth all the same. "I am technically a Light-elf, from Alfheim, though I recently spent some time in Asgard with my mother."

"Why were you in Asgard?" Darcy sounded honestly curious.

"So I could spend with the family, and train in some abilities that showed only recently." Menel shrugged. "I'm a spell-weaver."

"Spell-weaver..." Clint repeated, his voice turning cold. "You're a Sorcerer, like that psychotic bastard Loki..."

Menel couldn't help the flinch as the words were said, unknowingly rubbing at the tattoo in the inside of her right hand, that of two snakes twisted on themselves, forming a double infinity... her father's symbol. The inside of her other wrist bore a flower made out of Celtic (or elven) style knots, somewhat like the engraving on her pendant. They were magical tattoos (no needles necessary, and the ink carried magic), the representations of her parents, the method she had chosen to honor them and carry them with her, always.

"I'm nowhere near as powerful as he is." She forced herself to answer without responding to his insult to her father. "But I could try... if you let me..."

"Let her Clint..." Darcy murmured behind her.

"Darce..." Her boyfriend seemed shocked by her willingness to trust a stranger.

"Phil needs help now Clint, and she's our best shot." Darcy explained her decision.

Clint grumbled under his breath, cursing in at least two different languages, including Russian. Menel chose to ignore it, instead taking advantage the moment he stepped aside and allowed her to pass by him to reach the bed.

"So?" Darcy asked almost right away. "Can you help him?"

Menel needed only to hold a hand an inch or so from his body to sense the wrongness, whatever had been used to hurt him did carry poison... the question then was, was it simply a coincidence that he ended hurt so, or was someone targeting him? If so, was it really all Doom's doing, or was there someone else behind the attack?

"I can detect the poison." She answered as calmly as she could.

"What?!" The couple nearly flipped at that.

"That may be why he's bleeding still." The she-elf hypothesized. "His body knows the poison must go, and this is the only way it knows how... I'll need a bowl of water, cold if possible."

As she talked she was already taking off the fighting gloves that were part of her battle attire and putting them away, getting ready for what she needed to do.

"Cold?" Darcy was confused by that. "Shouldn't it be warm?"

"It won't be for him." The younger woman said simply.

Giving mental thanks that one of her basic gifts was telekinesis (one of her strange quirks, seeing as neither of her parents was telekinetic) and sending a quick prayer to Higher Beings that her plan would work, Menel placed her bare hands, palms open, straight on the puddle of blood forming on Phil's back, pressing a hand on each side of the wound.

"Wha...?!" The shock from the other two was obvious.

"I know what I'm doing!" Menel snapped at them, before mentally adding: 'I hope'.

Her somewhat insane plan actually worked, as she began drawing the poison to her hands as if they were magnets. After almost a full minute her tanned hands seemed to be covered by a dark black film, while the blood, Phil's blood, was the red it should be.

"The water!" She called loudly, fighting to keep her focus and the poison on her hands.

"Here!" Darcy arrived right then, with a bowl of iced water.

Menel barely had a second to consider how well that would go before she had no more time and submerged her hands inside the water, which immediately darkened with the poison washing off her skin. And not only that, the bowl began smoking, as if she had poured hot oil into the iced water. It was why she'd had such trouble holding it, the poison was hot, very hot, it burned even through her elven form.

"What the hell...?!" Clint staggered back at the sight.

"Well, that confirms it." Menel commented with a shrug.

"What?" Both fixed their eyes on her.

"That it was no accident that he was hurt like this." Menel clarified. "This is no normal poison. It is based on an ancient venom I've only read about, and which isn't from this world."

"The poison is from another planet?!" Clint was flabbergasted.

"Not exactly." Menel shook her head, waving her hands beneath the water to clean herself and neutralize the poison at the same time. "The best way I can put it is to say that this is a 'human' version of a poison originally from another planet."

"That's still no good." Clint insisted.

"No, it's not." Menel agreed.

"By the way." Darcy commented almost off-handedly. "Your hands are turning blue."

Clint's eyes widened in shock but Menel just shrugged, finally getting them out. It was true, her soft-golden skin had paled, taking a blue-sheen, telling of her Jotun heritage.

"It's fine." She assured the other two. "It's part of my complicated heritage."

It was, her hands dried on their own in a minute or so, and when they did the skin on her hands returned to normal, no problem at all.

"What do we do with this?" Darcy asked, signaling to the bowl.

"By now you can just send it down the drain." Menel assured her. "You can pour more cold water with it, but it's already been neutralized and no danger to anyone." She turned to Clint. "You won't be able to study it for that very reason."

"So the iced water is all that's needed to neutralize that poison?" Clint inquired.

"For the most part..." Menel hesitated, as if not wanting to explain, or not knowing how to. "My magic also had something to do with it; and the hardest part was getting it out of him..."

It was at that point that they all noticed something.

"He's still bleeding..." Darcy gasped.

It was true, it wasn't as bad as before, but he was still bleeding, which wasn't good, at all.

"Why the hell isn't he healing?!" Clint snarled. "He told me, us... that they did something, gave him something, that was making him heal more, better. So why isn't he healing now?!"

In an instant Menel was kneeling beside Phil, hands hovering an inch above his skin, brow furrowed as she focused all her will in understanding; and when she did, she cursed, in elvish.

"What was that?" Darcy asked, confused.

"He's not healing because he doesn't know he can!" Menel snapped.

"What does that mean?" Clint demanded. "He told me..."

"The poison weakened him enough the conscious part of his mind doesn't believe he can heal." Menel elaborated. "He doesn't know enough of his own capabilities to realize that isn't true. He can heal this, he can heal from next to anything now..."

"And how would you know?" Clint's brow arched in new distrust.

"Because I talked to the one person who would know!" Menel snapped. "Now, please be quiet, I need to focus and..."

Whatever rant she might have been on was completely forgotten a second later when exhausted, shadowed pale blue eyes opened just a sliver, at the same time a hoarse, half-broken voice came from the lips belonging to the same man:

"S-Sky...Skye...?" He coughed briefly, a moan of pain escaping his throat, before he asked again, more strongly. "Skye?"

It was dangerous to reveal things when in the company of people who already distrusted her, but if there was one person she would never lie to, it was her AC, so there was nothing she could do except answer, and hope she would get the chance to explain.

"It's me AC..." She whispered, running a hand through his matted hair. "I'm back..."

"I'm gla... so glad you're here..." Phil whispered brokenly.

"As am I." She nodded, smiling to him softly. "You and I are gonna talk about what you were doing in such a fight without the rest of the team backing you up... In fact, from what I just checked, the team is supposed to have the weekend off!" She had no problem revealing that she'd been keeping track of the team, it was her team after all. "Anyway, that'll be later. Why don't we get you healed now?"

"This isn't the kind of thing that can easily healed, Skye..." He murmured, eyes half-closed again.

"For normal humans probably not, but just as you know I'm not human, we both know you're not exactly normal anymore either..." She bent to whisper into his ear the last part. "Heal, Phillip, Son of Coul, heal as you're meant to, as the Warrior of Light, of Hope, you've been chosen to be. You carry the blessings of the greatest heroes of the Universe... Heal..."

Phil's sharp intake of breath was audible throughout the room, in the next second he was limp on the bed anyway; however, Skye, Menel, wasn't worried anymore. She could feel the energy running just beneath his skin, no longer restrained by fear and his own lack of acknowledgement, restoring him, healing him, as it was meant to.

"Skye?" Darcy's voice brought the she-elf out of her reverie. "Is that really you?"

The young brunette let out a breath before she got on her feet and turned to look at her old friend, dropping her elven-image at the same time. It wasn't a disguise, not really, she really did look like that as an elf, pointy ears and all; but being her father's daughter she had some of his shape-shifting ability, not as much as him, not enough to be like that mutant she'd once read about: Mystique, but she could easily change between forms: Jotun (though she had yet to fully change into that form), Ljósálfar, human.

"It is me, Darcy." She acknowledged, left hand twirling the end of her ponytail in a nervous tick.

"Yes, it is." Darcy nodded, looking her up and down. "Why all the Asgard-pretend, then?"

"It's..." She had no idea how to even begin to explain.

"Complicated?" Darcy offered with a half smile.

"Very much." Skye nodded with a shake of her head. "You remember what I told you that one time, when we were in college, about my parents?"

"You said you did not know who they were, knew nothing at all about them." Darcy remembered. "They abandoned you, with nothing more than your name and an old necklace."

"True." The younger girl nodded.

She remembered those times clearly. Darcy was older than her, of course, but languages were among those classes where different generations ended mixed up, as the level depended on a person's prior knowledge and when they began to study that language, rather than what year they were in. Darcy was on a rol, learning all the languages she could, so Chinese (Mandarin) had been just one more in the list; Skye, on the other side, had decided that if she wanted to be able to be a good hacker, she needed to communicate with others hackers in a language beyond that of hacking itself, and Mandarin was number one in the list of languages spoken by the most people (and China was among the countries with most hackers); it was also a chance to get a few more college credits, which was always good.

The two brunettes had connected from the very day they'd met, different as they'd been in so many ways. It was a friendship that had carried on even after the end of the semester, until Skye's mysterious disappearance one summer, just before left for her internship with Jane Foster...

"And you told me there were worse things than not knowing who my parents were." Skye forced herself to continue the line of conversation. "Like having a father that didn't care to stay long enough to know his child, and...

"And a mother who blamed all mistakes your father ever made, on you." Darcy finished for her. "You said you would find the truth about your parents one day... and then you disappeared that summer. I couldn't find you anywhere. Not the classrooms, your dorm-room, the offices. You vanished from the records even!"

Yes she was, she'd pretty much stopped existing altogether, like she'd told Mike that time in LA, she knew how to do that short of thing. Had done it before, to herself. It had been necessary, of course. But if she'd regretted one thing, it was not being able to say goodbye to Darcy...

"It's complicated..." She tried to say.

"Everything's complicated with you." Clint muttered testily.

"You remember Miles?" Skye finally blurted out at her old friend.

"Lydon?" Darcy's disgusted expression was enough of an answer, though she did go on. "The creepy stalker dude that kept trying to induct you into his cult-thingy?"

"It wasn't a cult!" The younger girl couldn't help the nervous laughter. "He was part of the Rising Tide, that's what he was trying to recruit me for."

"Wait, the Rising Tide?" Clint interrupted. "You mean that bunch of crazy hackers that kept releasing classified information to the public? Hacking all databases and such? That group?" His voice turned cold. "Many missions became a hell of a lot harder after they got their claws in our business. Good Agents were in a lot of danger, some almost died..."

Skye actually cringed at that. She hadn't known all that at the time. She wasn't high enough to know. She'd hacked, true, but she'd always believed that the public needed to know the truth about what was happening, so they could be prepared... she hadn't understood the other side of the coin, about protecting people, not worrying them for things that were out of their power anyway, not until S.H.I.E.L.D., not until Phil.

"You're right of course." Darcy nodded in a soothing manner at her boyfriend. "Which is why everyone celebrated when the group as a whole was finally taken down a few days ago. They have been dismantled and all the information they'd stolen, destroyed."

Clint nodded, seemingly calming down at that.

"So, you were talking about Miles..." Darcy turned back to her. "Is he connected to your disappearance? Because if he is I swear..."

"He is, and he's already been dealt with." Skye cut her off before letting out a sigh. "I believe I told you once my standing with the board at the university was tenuous at best, but I never said why. You see, the thing is that I wasn't entirely honest when I got my scholarship. I made the board believe I had connections, influences I did not, mainly with Stark Industries. It wasn't with any bad intention! It was necessary. When I tried to get a scholarship on my own I failed. Maybe it's to be expected, after all, why would the board of a highly prestigious university be interested in granting a full scholarship to an orphan girl with no name, no connections? So I changed that, made them believe I had both." She let out another breath. "It worked, I got the full scholarship I needed to study Communications and Computer Science. For four years it all went perfectly and then... something happened. I have no idea what. I went to sign up for a couple of summer classes and an internship when I was called to the Dean's office, they'd gotten a tip regarding a student falsifying records, they were onto me. They were already analyzing it all. So all I could do was run. I knew if they found I would end up with a fine I would never be able to pay, or worse." She shook her head in a self-deprecating manner. "Miles found me a couple of weeks later. I was living out of my van and was quickly running out of money, the scholarship had had a stipend, and I had no job... he offered me one, working with a friend of his, fixing computers, cellphones and the like. It began like that, and eventually he wore me down enough that I accepted to help him with a few hacking jobs. Before I knew it I was part of the Rising Tide." She turned to Clint, raising both hands in a placating manner. "I never meant to hurt anyone. I wasn't high enough to know everything that was going on. I thought we were helping... telling people the truth the government hid from them, allowing them to be prepared for what may come."

"That's naïve..." Clint shook his head.

"Indeed." Skye nodded in complete agreement. "It took being kidnapped by S.H.I.E.L.D. and then helping them to realize the truth."

"Being kidnapped and what?!" Darcy was in shock at that.

"It's how I ended working for him." Skye pointed at the unconscious Phil on the bed. "I uploaded a video of a man in a hoodie saving some doctor from an exploding lab in downtown LA. As it turns out, he was actually part of a secret super-soldier-style project, I'm sure you've heard about it, Centipede; so they took me in to get me to help them find him. At first I refused, until they made me see the truth of what was going on..."

"The mess in the train station last September..." Clint connected the dots. "You were there."

"From that day on, in fact." The girl nodded.

"If you're really who you claim to be..." The archer obviously wasn't fully convinced yet. "The records at S.H.I.E.L.D. have you listed as KIA. Phil told us it was complicated, that you weren't really dead but it was necessary for everyone but family to believe so..."

"And the fact that he told you even that much shows that he considers you family." Skye nodded.

"He's the mix of brother-father I never wanted... but always needed." Clint actually smiled then. "And since you were my girl's accomplice in getting him to come spend Christmas with us, you already knew that."

"I knew he saw you as family, both you and Agent Romanoff." Skye clarified. "And I cannot imagine anyone AC cares for not returning the feeling just as strongly..."

Clint opened his mouth right then, as if to respond in some manner to either Skye's words, or her expression as he said, them, but a touch from Darcy stopped him.

"What happened really?" Darcy asked her friend.

"You remember how I told you I would never stop searching for my parents?" Skye inquired in what seemed like a complete non-sequitur.

"I remember." Darcy wondered where it was all going.

"I found them." Skye explained with a small, gentle smile. "Or it's more like they found me. At the beginning of December, we had a mission in South Italy, tracking down a package from Cybertek, trying to discover what was in it, and who it was for. We were double-crossed by the Italian police who was supposed to be our backup, instead most of the team ended lost in the middle of a vineyard. Fitz and I were the only ones still on the train when the package was finally taken out. When we realized who was involved, Ian Quinn, who had been behind several cases already, we... I just couldn't let him go. We followed him to his villa. Then, once there Fitz sent on disabling the cars to make sure they wouldn't get away, while I went in, to find the package. Quinn found me, he shot me, apparently under orders, twice in the stomach."

Darcy flinched, one hand moving to her upper left arm, the scar there... she had known the pain of a shot in one arm... she couldn't begin to imagine getting two bullets in the stomach.

"Two bullets, in the stomach, at point blank." Clint enlisted. "I read the report. You should have died. The doctors at the Trauma Zentrum in Zurich were all pretty sure you had hours at most when Phil insisted on taking you out of the hospital..."

"And they would have been right, if we'd been playing by their rules." Skye admitted, fingering her pendant, she focused on Darcy. "I told you my parents left me with nothing but my name and this old necklace, and it was true. But as I found, there was more to it than that. My parents didn't leave me because they did not love me, but because they did. They left me to protect me, all I had was this, because it was all my mother could leave me with. The necklace was my mother's, a family heirloom... it somehow connected us when I was dying. She sensed what was happening to me, and she and my Father went looking for me. My father saved my life..."

"And you faked your own death." Darcy added, still confused about that part.

"It was necessary." Skye half-shrugged. "Too many people knew what had happened to me. And, as we found out, Quinn had been given the order to shoot me, not to kill me, so my team would find a way to save me."

"What...?" The others weren't expecting that.

"What S.H.I.E.L.D. did to save Phil after New York... they wanted him to do it for me." Skye elaborated. "So the Clairvoyant could find out what it was... so we eliminated that option."

"You faked your death." Clint nodded, understanding.

"So, whatever it was they did to save Phil, to bring him back..." Darcy shivered as he said that. "Phil was supposed to find a way to do it for you... just how did your father help you anyway? If you were already that far gone?"

"Magic." Skye couldn't help but smirk. "And I don't mean that metaphorically."

"You're Loki's daughter..." Clint murmured suddenly.

Skye actually froze (figuratively only) in shock at that, wondering how the archer had managed to make such a leap, until she raised a hand, touching the pair of sunglasses still perched on the top of her head. It hadn't been too sunny anymore when she'd left the office, and the blue eyes was the one thing she never changed anymore when going from one form to another. And really, having realized who Clint Barton was exactly, she should have expected him to discover her sooner or later... the man was no idiot.

"I am." She nodded.

"That's not possible." Darcy shook her head in denial.

The other two actually turned to look at her in confusion, wondering the reason for her reaction.

"You said your father saved on after that mission in Italy, in December." Darcy elaborated. "But that's just no possible, because he died in Svartalfheim, saving Thor and Jane during the whole mess with the Aether and the dark-elves-thingies... and that was in November!"

The archer's brow arched as he realized where his girlfriend was going with her rant.

"He faked his death..." He muttered angrily.

"Not quite." Skye let out a tired breath. "I'm not lying! And neither was Thor, for I imagine it was he who told you about what happened in Svartalfheim. Father did die there and... I guess you could say it pays to be family to the Queen of the Dead... Hela helped him, the Convergence made it relatively easier for him to return to a world of the living." She closed her eyes tightly for a moment before explaining. "What you need to understand is that my parents abandoned me twenty-four years ago, to protect me from the man who was trying to destroy me, for no other reason that who my father is. They tried to run with me, and when that did not work, they sent me away. A small town in China and two tactical teams from S.H.I.E.L.D. were murdered protecting me... though most of them did not know why."

"Who could want someone, a newborn at that, dead that much to create such destruction?" Darcy asked, not being able to fully grasp the concept.

"Odin..." Skye answered quietly.

"Your grandfather?!" The two were shocked at that. "But..."

"That monster is nothing of mine!" Skye hissed, before adding in a softer tone. "He hates what Loki is, only took him in to further his own plans. And for whatever reason he's always seen any child of my father's as a threat. He believes we will be the ones to stark Ragnarok! Which I think is absolutely insane by the way... Whyever would we want to destroy the universe?" She rolled her eyes and snorted at the mere thought. "In any case, that's why he's destroyed my sibling's lives, and he tried to do the same to me."

"Whyever would you want to destroy the universe..." Clint repeated almost sardonically. "Like why your father would want to destroy Earth?"

"He wasn't trying to destroy anything." Skye defended. "Look, I'm not saying he's a saint, 'cause we both know there's nothing farther from the truth, but neither is he the monster some might wish to portray him as. Twenty-four years ago, after the Allfather failed to find me, my mother was trapped in the deepest cell of the Asgardian dungeons and my father was made to forget either of us ever existed... probably because Odin still had some use for him. After he fell off the Bifrost... things happened, and my father remembered us, he snapped. He did a lot of things without care for consequences because of how hurt he was after remembering what happened, but he never meant to destroy the Earth... he knew that if I had survived I was here, as a human, and he would never hurt me. He still couldn't completely go against the true leader of the chitauri, the one who'd sent him... so he did the next best thing. He provoked you."

"Provoked us?" That, Clint wasn't expecting.

"Into gathering together, becoming a team, into being ready to fight." Skye explained quietly. "And before you ask, what he did to AC was part of that too."

Clint was enough of a soldier to understand what she meant, the value of having not just something to fight for, but someone, even if they were just thinking about vengeance...

"You said you'd talked about the one person who would know about his healing..." Clint murmured, suddenly beginning to connect that as well.

"My sister." Skye nodded in agreement. "Being the ruler of Helheim she has knowledge of that kind of thing. The full-explanation I will give until he can hear it, then AC can decide who to share it with. It is about him, after all."

Clint nodded, agreeing with her on that front.

"So... will you turn me in to S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Skye couldn't help but blurt out. "Or my father?"

For a handful of seconds not a word was said, and when Clint finally spoke, the answer was not one Skye could have ever imagined:

"I no longer work for S.H.I.E.L.D." He announced, and at the young woman's silent shock elaborated a bit. "After what happened with the invasion and the ba... your father, most Agents did not trust me. The Council wanted my head on a platter of course, but it really wasn't the first time, and Fury, surprisingly enough, had my back, as did Nat, so I was covered on that front. I tried to go back to work as if nothing had happened, to ignore the murmurs behind my back... until the third mission on a row when the backup failed to show up in time. It was then that I actually realized what was going on. They couldn't refuse to work with me because I had the backup of the high-ups, but if I happened to get killed on a mission... well, it's not like it would be their fault they couldn't get there in time to help me, right?"

There was so much sarcasm drowning his voice that Skye couldn't help but flinch.

"It wasn't your fault." He said, and it sounded like he truly believed it.

"No, just my father's..." The young princess couldn't help but snap in an self-loathing tone.

"If there is one thing I can understand it is doing anything and everything that is needed to achieve one's goal." Clint explained. "I was a soldier before I was an Agent, I know how that works. And... knowing that the goal was worth it, protecting this world, it actually helps."

He was saying the truth, Skye knew it, could feel his honesty in every word. He believed her when she said that the objective had always been to protect the world, even if her father had gone about it in a less than orthodox (and safe) manner. And, she supposed, the man Clint had lost was back, so maybe that helped as well.

"I don't really miss it, you know?" He said then, in a more amicable manner than anything he'd said before. "While it is true that S.H.I.E.L.D. was my life for a very long time, after the circus and... everything I had to leave behind, it's not anymore. Back then it was Nat, Phil and I against the world... I have others now, like Darcy, and the rest of the Avengers. Even if we're pretty scattered right now. I know I can count on them. Tony actually offered me a job." He chuckled. "Not sure what he would have expected me to do... but I decided I would rather take a long deserved sabbatical... it's not like I need money. Good thing of being a high-ranked Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and undertaking all those black ops, no-extraction missions was the pay..."

"Nah." Darcy snickered at that, before whispering to Skye in a conspiratorial tone. "Don't let him try and trick you. With him it was all about the thrill... Hell of an adrenaline junkie that one is..."

Skye actually sniggered at that, and the pout Clint made at his girlfriend's tone.

And that was how, somehow, that day Skye found herself adding two names to the list of people she considered her family...

**xXx**

Phil woke up 24 hours later. Skye was sleeping, curled up in a high-back chair in a corner of the bedroom. He could hardly believe it was her, after not seeing her for three months. There were some differences, from how she'd looked before: honey-colored highlights throughout her long chocolate brown hair, her skin more tanned than it had been before, her features somewhat more defined, almost aristocratic.

Clint helped Phil take a long shower to rid himself of the dried blood, sweat and grime, while Darcy changed the bed-sheets.

Dinner was ready by the time Darcy woke Skye up, she almost had a heart-attack when she saw the bed empty and done, at least until she heard a laughter she knew well-enough, coming from the open area that acted as living-dining-room and kitchen all at the same time. Clint and Phil were serving the drinks, with take-out containers of Chinese food already set-up.

Dinner was a fairly easy affair, with everyone sharing stories about the things they'd been doing in recent months, Skye even shared some of her experiences from her time in Asgard. It was also how she learnt that Phil had taken to visiting Phil and Darcy whenever work allowed the team to have a couple of days off. Things had been relatively easy since Quinn's arrest three months before. It even seemed like after the failure of his last plan the Clairvoyant wasn't quite sure what to do next, Skye dying, and not being revived probably had taken him/her by surprise.

It was until after dinner was finished, that things turned serious:

"You called me a Warrior of Light, of Hope..." Phil reminded her quietly and seriously. "Said I carry the blessings of the greatest heroes in the universe... what does that mean?"

"After leaving Asgard I 'dropped by' Helheim, so to speak." Skye began explaining. "I talked to my sister, Hela... mostly we talked about her life, about what I can expect being... well, being who I am, and whose daughter I am. She was the oldest when Odin got rid of my half-siblings and has a very good memory." She shook her head, forcing herself to focus on the matter at hand. "We also talked about you."

"About me?" Phil wasn't expecting that.

"We talked a lot after the kidnapping and that frigging machine, after your talk with that doctor and the file Fury sent you, about the things you could remember of when you were brought back to this world." Skye elaborated. "But have you ever stopped to consider where you were before?"

"In the helicarrier, where he died." Clint muttered as if it was obvious.

"No, I mean in between those." Skye clarified.

Silence reigned in response to that.

"You mean where he went after he died." Darcy spoke after what seemed like forever. "Wait, wouldn't that be Helheim?"

That refocused the men's whole attention, as they understood why Skye had brought up her sister and visiting her, right then.

"Yes, Hela is the Queen of Helheim, Lady of the Dead." Skye nodded, before adding. "However, it's not that simple. There are actually three realms that concern the dead. Helheim is for those who have died of natural causes, of age, of sickness... that's not what happened to AC, his death was that of a Warrior..."

"Wait, isn't there another place, one for heroes?" Darcy asked, trying to remember.

"Valhala." Skye nodded quietly. "It's where all heroes go after they die. According to the legends, they enjoy all kinds of pleasures until Ragnarok comes, when they will be released to join the Last of All Wars..." She fixed her eyes straight on Phil. "You're the first human to have set foot on Valhala in more years than I can count. And you're the only one who's ever come back." she let out a breath, smiling softly. "It's almost funny you know. We were so focused in learning what S.H.I.E.L.D. did to bring you back, but that was never the important part. What S.H.I.E.L.D. restored your body, enough to allow you to actually come back; but all that would have been useless if your soul hadn't been sent back, and that was never up to humans..."

"Is that normal?" Clint asked, curious. "For those in Valhala to... return to life, so-to-speak?"

"It happens sometimes." Skye nodded. "They are considered as great and honorable heroes and hold high positions in Asgard, mostly in the Army... they are called the Eihenjar." She turned to Phil. "That's what you are... or a human version of one. Though there's no other name, like I said, this had never happened before to a human warrior..."

"Who did it?" Phil asked, focused on one other detail they seemed to be missing, either by coincidence or on purpose. "Who sent me back? Was it your sister?"

"She allowed your soul to pass through her realm, the only way you could have actually come back here." Skye answered. "As, otherwise, you would have ended in Asgard. "However, she wasn't the one to send you back in the first place."

"Then who did?"

"My grandmother, Lady Frigga..."

For almost a full minute not a word was spoken, the shock was simply too great.

"But that's impossible!" Darcy blurted out eventually, still half-busy counting with her fingers. "She was still alive when the chitauri attack happened. The mess in London was over a year later! It just... it's not possible."

"But it is." Skye insisted. "Time is a relative thing when it comes to the realms of the dead, like Helheim and Valhala. It doesn't run the same way it does in the rest of the realm, not the same speed, and it's not always linear. It's why it's so hard to travel into Helheim, actually, Father and I have it easier because we're connected to Hela, and the King of Asgard is another matter entirely. Valhala can only be accessed by the Allfather and his Queen at any given time before its gates are opened for the Last War..." She shook her head, getting back to the topic at hand. "So you see, it is quite possible for Grandmother to have been in Valhala at the same time AC was, for her to have sent him back."

"Why did she?" Phil inquired next. "Send me back I mean."

"I don't know." The young woman admitted quietly. "Like I said before, I have no way of going into Valhala, or contacting grandmother... whatever her motives might have been for sending you back, only the two of you would know."

"And could I?" Was the older Agent's next question. "Could I recover those memories?"

"In theory, it's possible." Skye nodded, then began explaining more in depth what she'd learnt. "If you'd been like any other Eihenjar, you'd have been sent back, through the Great River in Asgard, which's current descends from Valhala. The new body would have been powerful, ready to handle all the strengths and abilities your status carries. However, then you wouldn't have been able to come to Midgard, Odin would have never allowed it. So you had to be sent to this this realm directly. What S.H.I.E.L.D. not only restored your body, but also strengthened it, enough to handle your new status."

"I don't feel any differently." Phil pointed out.

"Maybe not consciously." The young woman insisted. "But I've been told about what happened when you came after Mike and I in that train station, the way you bent backwards in what should have been an impossible move to avoid the door thrown at you. And that's not all either, there are a number of other instances, and that's just the start. Because she did not know you had power, you could not access it, now you know, and when you begin to truly believe it, it will begin to manifest, much like my magic and my other forms did. It won't be all right away, more like a slow grow, but still. Regarding your memories... it is quite possible that once your power stabilizes enough you will begin getting the memories of that time back. I imagine I must have been planned, for if things continue as they have thus far, you'll need them sooner or later." She smiled beautifully at him. "You are an Eihenjar, AC. You are an Honorable Warrior, part of the Highest Class in all the realms, believe it..."

Not a word was said, as Phil Coulson was allowed to contemplate everything that had just been revealed. He'd always known there had to be more than chance when it was to his return, even with what he had been remembering since Raina's memory-machine; and what he'd discovered from that file Fury had released to him, he was sure there was more, there had to be. A part of him wondered if Nick knew about the whole Valhala-Eihenjar thing... had he known when he had his people working on restoring Phil's body that the soul had to be sent back by Higher Powers? Had he known it would be sent back? Was it all wishful thinking on his part? Or had someone told Nick to do it all?

It was a possibility Phil hadn't contemplated before because, like Skye had mentioned, never had any of them stopped to consider the other side of the coin regarding his return, that there had to be more to it than just healing his body, his soul... maybe it wasn't that surprising, it's not like most of them in S.H.I.E.L.D. were that religious in the first place, with some notable exceptions like Captain Rogers...

At some point while he was lost in his reverie Clint and Darcy decided it was better to take their leave and retired to their bedroom. Phil had just begun to consider doing the same when he realized he wasn't actually alone, there was someone still there, with him.

"Skye..." He whispered, not quite sure what exactly he wanted to say.

Somehow, the use of her name seemed to be all the invitation the young woman needed to step closer to Phil, getting into his personal space, much like she'd done before.

"I've missed you..." She whispered, pressing forward even more.

She intended to kiss him, Phil could read her intentions as easily as he ever had and yet... and yet a part of him couldn't help but remember that moment back ten weeks or so before, when Darcy had so flippantly told him she and Skye had been friends in college, when he'd begun to wonder if he truly knew Skye, if he'd ever known her. She'd trusted him with what, at the time, had seemed like her darkest, deepest secret, her lack of knowledge regarding her origins; and they had all known about her status as an orphan, her time in the system; however, it was quite obvious there was a lot they did not know, a lot she had seen fit not to share...

Skye went to kiss Phil, something she'd been wishing to do since the moment his eyes had closed as he went into a healing sleep, once she'd been able to stop worrying that he might die on her before she had the chance to be with him... she never expected him to reject her, to turn his face away before their lips could connect.

"Wha...?" The young princess hadn't the slightest idea what was going on.

"No Skye.." He shook his head, taking a step to a side, putting space between them.

"But... before..." She was so shocked by his actions she couldn't even find the right words to express herself in that moment.

"That was a mistake, this is a mistake." Phil stated in an almost blank tone. "I am your friend, your teammate, your superior... and that's all I can be."

"No." She shook her head emphatically at that. "That, what you just said, that, is the mistake, the only one here. You are so much more than that, and I'm not talking about the Eihenjar thing... we can be so much more..."

"No, we cannot." He stated in a final tone. "I'm sorry Skye, but comradeship and friendship are all I can offer you. I..."

"No." She interrupted him this time. "I'm the one who's sorry. It seems I've pushed you in a direction you're not willing to go. I apologize for that. It was presumptuous of me to believe you might feel for me what I feel for you..."

"It was not presumptuous." Phil assured her. "Just a mistake. It doesn't matter."

But it did matter, and they both knew it. Skye knew that no matter how much he denied it, he still felt something for her, she could feel it; but she did not understand why he was rejecting her advances then, and she was being honest when she said she wouldn't force him. She would have to understand what was going on before trying again, because there was just no way she was giving up, no way, her AC was worth more than that, a lot more...

And Phil... even he did not know why he was doing that. It was more than just the feeling of not knowing Skye, because he knew that was an easy matter to solve. No, it was a feeling that he did not know himself, and how could he expect someone else to know him and love him, if he did not? Maybe someday... but no, he couldn't, wouldn't think like that. He had no idea how long it would take him to be ready, and by then it was likely Skye would have moved on already, she was, after all, so much more than he could ever be... or so he believed.

If only they had each known what the other was thinking, a lot of misunderstandings might have been prevented. But then again, the path to true love never did run smooth...

**xXx**

Two days later Phil arrived to the S.H.I.E.L.D. airstrip where the bus was waiting for him, along with the rest of the team. May informed him that they had a mission already waiting for them; but before they could be on their way they had to wait for their new team-member to arrive. That surprised most of the team, as they hadn't been expecting something like that.

"She's from the Communications and Technology Department." May informed the rest of the team. "Less than a year on official service and already a Level Six."

"How can that be?" Ward asked. "It should take an Agent years to get that far."

"I'm sure you must have heard about the fall of the Rising Tide just last week." May commented, not actually waiting for an answer. "She was responsible for that. She put together the team and lead the operation that allowed us to finally take down the most dangerous hacking organization on the planet. It's what awarded her Level Six status, and there are rumors that, if she does well-enough on our team, she might be promoted again."

"They're looking to make her Chief of the Communications Department." Fitz guessed.

"Possibly." Phil agreed. "Though that matters little. What matters right now, is that she's our new-team, to be treated with respect and..."

"Someone talking about me?" A voice asked.

Phil knew who it was before he even turned around, the voice one he could identify as he could his own. She was dressed in dark-washed jeans, a long-sleeved violet button-up, leather duster tied around her small waist and high leather boots; her hair in a tight ponytail, and dark glasses hiding her eyes; but he still knew it was her, just as she had promised, she was back... and apparently with even more surprises unde her sleeve!

"Yes, you're the Agent sent to join our team, the Techie?" Ward asked formally, failing to recognize the girl before him.

"That I am." She declared with a wild grin, pulling her glasses off to finally reveal herself to her old team. "Agent Astrid Avery, pleased to meet you all... again..."

* * *

And cut! Lokidottir is finished.

Coming next: As Hydra is revealed and S.H.I.E.L.D. falls into pieces the 'team-family ' will have to face the darkness inside itself, cowards and traitors, premonitions made true, and a love story that hesitates to bloom... That and a lot more in: "Avery"

The titles of the fics in this series, I think I shall tell you now, will all be names, and all names connected to Skye. Manifestations of her, so-to-speak, in each story one form of her will show more (hence that name being the title). This story was all about her discovering her heritage, about being Loki's Daughter. Next will be about the Agent, and so on, until all the pieces come together as they're meant to be...

So, for the time being that's that. See ya in two weeks with the first chapter of Avery!

P.S. Please don't forget to review (they work wonders during my negotiations with my muse...)


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